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Let's get into today's show.
Hello and welcome back to the show.
I'm Patrick.
And as always, I'm Ben.
And you're joined today by our friend Mark England.
Gentlemen, how are you both doing?
Very well.
Very well indeed.
Howdy, gents.
Thanks for having me back.
Fantastic.
Thanks for coming back, Mark.
You've been on the show a handful of times.
Real, real quick, give us the two-sentence version of what is Enlifted?
Enlifted is the company that you co-founded.
What do you do?
What do you spend your precious hours working on there in Enlifted?
And lifted is a movement.
It's a punk movement in the mindset space.
Why?
Because we keep shit real simple.
That's one of our calling cards is simplicity and practicality and efficiency.
And we help people with their mindset.
And our definition of mindset, in my personal opinion, is the best in the space.
Mindset is the story that you tell yourself.
That's what your mindset is.
And you can add some things in.
Your mindset about your finances is the story you tell yourself about your finances.
Your mindset about your body is the story you tell yourself about your body.
And those stories are made of words.
And we get down very quickly and easily, simply because it's not easy sometimes to pick up that heavy ass pen.
We help people.
That thing can be a 600 pound deadlift.
Or worse.
We help people improve their mindset, improve the stories that they tell themselves by focusing on words and breath.
And yeah, we've built a reputation off of it.
I've been doing this work full time for 18 years.
I'm that the head coach have been lifted.
I'm one of the co founders deliver all of our trainings for the past six and a half years.
We've been certifying coaches.
That's that's our only line of that's our business.
All right.
Words and breath.
That is what we tend to talk about with you when you are here.
We're going to talk about words today.
We're going to talk about something that you introduced to me called Kidland's Law.
I'm really excited to get into this.
You presented it to me first, or us first, as it relates to New Year's resolutions, which I want to get into with you, even though I think we're in October.
So we're not quite there yet, but we're getting there.
We're getting there fast.
But I want to start with what Kidlan's Law is.
And so I did a little bit of reading.
And what I found interesting and what I want to start with, is you gave me a definition.
That is Kidlan's Law any question sufficiently worded and written down is half answered.
And then, in my reading about Kidlan's Law, I found a few alternative framings, one of them being, if you can write the problem down clearly, you're halfway to solving it.
And one that's very similar, which is, if you can't write your problem down clearly, you don't understand it.
And so my first question to you is about why yours is a question when everybody else's is a statement.
In other words, any question sufficiently worded versus if you can write the problem down clearly.
So let's start with their kid's law.
What is it?
How do you use it?
And why is yours framed as a question versus a statement?
Nice.
There's a big difference between, between answers and questions.
So long story short, and you can take this into you being the listeners, your conversations with people, you all are coaches.
Absolutely.
Take this in their answers.
Push.
Answers, answers, answers, push, questions, pull.
Answers, I tell them.
Questions, they tell them.
And one of them, I'm gonna rant on this real quick.
Coaching hell on earth is thinking that you have to have all the right answers for your clients.
That's extremely stressful.
And guess what?
Good luck doing that, because that means you're going to have to know more about everything than your clients do.
You're going to have to know more about them than they do.
You're going to have to be smarter than them in all areas.
And that's not going to happen.
And the imposter syndrome is waiting out in the alley behind the dumpster.
It's going to roll your ass.
And so it's existentially draining.
It's not fun either.
Oh, by the way, most coaches that think they have all the right answers because one it's stressful.
Two, their timing is off.
Their breath is trapped in their chest.
And it's low-level coaching.
Questions, ask more questions and watch what happens.
Questions will pull their information out of them.
And then you combine that with low and slow breathing and that, in my opinion is, generally speaking, that's the highest form of helping someone with their mindset.
I can rant on that later.
So there's some variations of the definition of Kindlin's Law.
Any questions sufficiently worded and written down is half answered.
So that is a statement.
And it focuses on a question.
Most people have questions.
So it's more specific.
Most people have questions about things.
So I was just talking to you all before we started recording.
I've run Kindlin's Law exercises with what we could just say, some very, you know, salt of the earth, blue collar people.
And the quote unquote highest level group of people that I've run it in was a group of 50 crypto and real estate whales.
I got brought in to do this exact workshop because the guy saw me do it somewhere else at a mastermind.
He's like.
I want that for my investors and traders went in there and every single one of those extremely high net worth individuals had unanswered questions, half-baked questions, about some things going on in their business and in their life kept in their head.
And the point of this exercise is one to help create space and clarity and help people get some better answers.
Because the quality of your question is directly correlated to the quality of the answers that you get.
Half of a sentence question about something that's very important.
Questions kept in the head, let's just say they're a full sentence.
They go really fast.
They swirl.
They take up a lot of space.
Someone could have five questions about a move that they need to make, whether it's a physical move, move locations, change jobs.
Should I stay with this person?
And those five questions keep circulating.
So it feels like there's 555 questions when there's really, there's only five main ones.
And what I've seen over time of running this.
This is a very participatory exercise and, And lucky everybody, we're about to run this thing live.
Grab a pen and get a piece of paper, everybody, because we're going to do this thing.
A lot of times people get the questions out of their head and those seven questions get distilled down to four.
And then the four, you're like, okay, well actually this has something to do with something else.
And here's the real two main questions that I have about this potential big life move.
And it slows the thing down, it gives distance and space.
People take sighs of reliefs of pressure.
We also four-step the process.
And a lot of times, so it's just like a draft in college.
There's so much to this.
You get the words on paper and then you can draft and craft the question to make it a better and better question, a more focused question.
Question and guess what's going to happen to the quality of the answer that you're going to get?
It's going to go up, and You know we talked about New Year's resolutions.
Let's walk that back real quick.
How often, gentlemen?
And you're in this space professionally, at the highest level for a very, very long time.
In y'all's experience of being in the gym.
How many people are talking about their New Year's resolutions in July?
Exactly nobody.
Let's keep going.
June.
Probably not.
Probably close to zero.
May.
Still probably zero.
April.
I love this exercise.
I do this when we roll this out and people are like, oh, okay, yeah, I get it.
April.
And we're going to finish it.
April.
I think a very select few people are still talking about it in April.
The most attached people.
March?
Yeah.
I say yes.
We're starting to get to people who listen to Chasing Excellence and Mark England probably are still thinking about it.
Why they haven't followed through or why they trailed off.
February.
February.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
I'd say there's some.
There's some.
Last week in January.
I would say that that's where the normies start to fall off.
Yeah, the normies fall off.
My experience walking people back through this exercise, normies fall off week three in January.
Yeah.
Why?
Partly because what they're doing is guilt tripping themselves after a sugar cookie and alcohol fused bender for the holidays.
They're like, I gotta do something.
And, right out of all this stuff, what we've experienced doing this and also with our questions for the year.
So New Year's questions, everybody.
It's October 2025.
And think of it that way.
Think of it that way.
So statements, this is what I'm going to do.
It pushes.
Questions, it pulls. and there's just something magic about getting a question sufficiently worded and we can very much elaborate on that we will written down and and you might get the answers right then and there you might get them in the shower two days but the and the question has been the question has been posed So something's on the way.
It's going to pull from somewhere.
You're going to get some insights to it.
You said half-baked questions stuck in your head and you've mentioned a few times now picking up the pen.
Why is it important that we write these things down?
Why is it important that we don't just say I'm going to go take a walk and think about my New Year's questions?
A walk and thinking about New Year's questions would be very valuable.
And the ease the fastest and easiest way to think about our thinking you've probably done verbalize this quote on y'all show many times.
The fastest way to think about your thinking is to write things down.
Alan Watts, when we learn to think about our thinking, we become alive in a new way.
Get the words externalized.
So you've got some distance, so you can look at the words, allow them to breathe, make them better, if you've learned how to do that, because that's a skill.
And it's a specific skill.
You didn't learn it in high school English class.
How to architect your language to stay focused on what's important.
Keep the drama low, build yourself up in your imagination, turn yourself into a very good listener.
All those, that's what we mean when we say helping people get in their language working for them.
Most people's language works against them.
And questions kept in the head half of a sentence.
Like I've said previously, it That's actually working against someone.
And it turns out to be very stressful.
Very stressful because you don't get very good answers for it.
And the thing, it creates a lot of overwhelm.
There's a word I haven't used yet.
A ton of overwhelm.
Say more about that.
What does that overwhelm look like, feel like, and how does writing it down cut through some of that overwhelm?
Yeah.
Writing it down creates clarity. writing it down slows the story down.
So the faster the story goes, the more myopic our focus gets.
It's just like running wind sprints.
When we go run, wind sprints our vision.
It gets tunnel vision.
We lose access to our peripheral vision.
In this case, the big picture, our listening tanks, our breath gets trapped in the chest.
All of that happens.
And a lot of times when stories are kept in the head and questions and there's also stories attached to these questions.
All of that's kept in the head.
The longer it stays there, the less likely someone is to do something about it, much less make some quality decisions.
So inevitably, they get into the indecision aspect of overwhelm.
Nobody likes prolonged bouts of indecision.
And if they play that indecision game for long enough, then they identify themselves as an indecisive person.
And Teddy Atlas said when someone wins the belt they get 30 better overnight because now they're the champ.
When we identify ourself as something, I'm unlovable.
It's now 30% harder to receive the love.
Or I've got a lot of support.
Now we're going to recognize that support in other areas.
It goes both ways.
It's neutral.
It's Switzerland.
And whatever we identify ourself as, we get better at it super fast.
So there's the indecision component.
And you have very, in my opinion, poor and limited information with questions kept in the head.
Because, again, Kindlin's law is sufficiently worded.
We haven't elaborated on the question.
And a lot of times people's questions transform once we get them out of this embryonic state of staying in our head.
And we can develop the words better questions, better answers, better answers, better actions, better actions, better life.
And so on.
And really, it's simple.
It's just not done very much.
When one of our, and I'll give a shout out to Megan Henry.
She was an Olympic skeleton.
She was the fastest woman in skeleton in the United States at one point in time.
She was on the national team.
I can't remember why she didn't make it to the Olympics.
A high-level Olympic-level athlete in skeleton, which is a crazy sport.
And she brought this to us in one of our level two certifications about three years ago.
And as soon as she said it, I just did one of those.
I was like, that is important.
That is majorly important.
And we've been using it since.
And questions lead to options.
Most people don't write down their options either.
Questions and options go hand in hand.
I can tell a good story in about two minutes about writing down your options.
Okay, cool.
This woman...
And this absolutely dovetails right back into the dangers of being a smarty-pants coach and telling people things like you just need to believe in yourself.
More stuff like that.
That stuff doesn't work, everybody.
People keep trying.
So this woman came in and she had a botched eyebrow tattoo job.
And it had been haunting her life for about two years.
It was about a 12 to 15 minute makeup ritual just to get herself, in her opinion, presentable to the world.
If it was raining, she wouldn't go outside.
She wouldn't stay over at other people's houses.
It was negatively influencing her dating life and just causing her stress.
And she goes, hey, Mark, I hear you help people with stories.
This was in SoCal.
I was like, I do.
She came over.
We sat down.
And she told me what the problem was.
And I said, okay, we'll have you written down your options.
No, let's start there.
And so I said, and people don't like hearing this, and it's also valuable.
I can't keep living like this.
Actually, you can.
Trust me, you can.
And getting the stuff that you don't want as options written down helps.
So I said, can you continue to live like this?
But I don't want to.
I didn't ask that.
Can you?
Yes.
Cool.
I can continue.
And you want to write them in full sentences.
Same thing with Kendall's Law.
I can continue to do the makeup dance for 12 to 15 minutes every day.
Okay.
Next, can you get them removed?
Yes, I can.
It's 12 to 15 sessions.
X amount of dollars, very painful, takes about 18 months.
Okay.
Is it an option?
Yes.
Wrote that down.
Could you get them redone?
Well, you know, I contacted two eyebrow specialists, eyebrow tattoo specialists, and they said there's nothing they can do.
Myself personally, I've got about 60 hours of ink on me.
So I've been in the tattoo chair.
And I said, we're in SoCal, tons of great tattoo studios.
I said, I bet if you contact 10, so create a goal, 10, Tattoo Studios, somebody can help you.
And that right there is me not having an answer for her.
It's being creative and unattached.
If she said, I hate that idea, I'd go, wonderful.
She said, I like that idea.
I said, wonderful.
I'm Switzerland in the coaching space.
You've heard me say that, Patrick.
You've seen me do it.
And so we wrote that down.
Contact 10 tattoo studios.
And I said, are there any, do you have any other options?
I didn't see any.
She didn't see any.
She goes, I'm going to take choice C. And she ended up.
The first tattoo studio she called, they're like, nah, I can't do anything.
Second one, they said, send over some pictures.
They're like, oh, we got you.
Two sessions, two 30-minute sessions, $250 a session.
She goes, I'm in.
And it helped a lot.
Here's another good one, too.
On her way out the door, oh, by the way, she was a PhD psychologist.
On her way out the door.
As soon as her hand hit the doorknob, she turned around and she goes.
Oh Mark, by the way, if you had told me I just need to love myself more, I would have gotten up and walked out.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For example, like that Mark, going back to the beginning, what is the?
I'm trying to like?
Pull it all together in terms of like the questions versus what's the questions.
What's the questions that we got the options?
What is the questions that would have been right for her? how big of a problem is this for me?
She already answered that, got her moving.
Really, the main question was what are my options here?
What can I do about this?
She already identified that this is a major problem.
What can I do about this?
Can presupposes that you can do something about something, because most of the time we can because we're participating in the problem.
Problem being the story.
We're not innocent bystanders in our life, everybody.
We're participants.
What can I do here about this fill-in-the-blank?
And so that will pull options.
It's a very powerful question.
Simple.
And if it's written down, then you can stare at the words, slow the thing down, and think better.
So even though we didn't start with that question, Ben, that was there before.
She.
You know that's what a lot of people when they book in for mindset coaches they have asked themselves or decided they need some help.
What can I do about this issue?
One of the things I came across when reading about this sort of exercise is that you want to get and I thought about it because I think it's embedded in the story you just told Mark which is one of the things you want to try to work yourself towards, regardless of where you start.
As you go through the editing process.
What you want to do is you want to start moving towards specificity and away from vagueness, towards neutrality and away from blaming either yourself or external circumstances, other people.
And you want to start moving yourself toward outcome focused.
So what I?
And I hear sort of a bits of all of that or, if not, you know more than bits of all of that in that story you just told, in terms of you move towards specificity, you weren't blaming anybody.
And ultimately, the options were led you towards what am I going to do about this?
Yes.
And and as the old saying goes, action dispels overwhelm.
Yeah.
Action dispels overwhelm.
It's very true.
Even I'll take who said that?
I got the quote.
I forget who said it.
He said, I'll take the fear of making the wrong decision versus the terror of indecision.
I'm going to say that again.
I'll take the fear of making the wrong decision versus the terror, the paralysis of indecision.
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One of the things this is making me think of is Ben and I talk about a framework a lot.
The framework is awareness, intention, and then action.
First, figure out what it is, right?
Raise the awareness of what it is we're talking about.
Set the intention okay, because of that awareness this, you know this and then actually go forth and put that into action.
How do you think about, with that framework in mind awareness, intention action?
How do you think that Kinlan's Law fits into that?
Or how do you think it can help us execute on that full framework awareness, intention and then action?
It can help at every stage of the game.
Awareness.
There's levels of awareness.
I didn't realize it was such a big problem until I wrote it out.
It'll help awareness.
Once I picked up pen and paper, even though it might seem not like much, you just took action.
You just took some action.
For whatever reason, writing things down is the easiest thing to do and it's also the hardest thing to do.
It's easy to do, and it's super easy not to do. procrastinate.
So you've taken some action.
And if you haven't written down the issue before, then you're doing something different.
So one, you've done something new and you've taken some action and awareness intention.
And What was the third piece?
Action.
Action.
Yeah.
You got a better map.
Yep.
Got a better map.
Yeah, I like this.
Patrick, you shared an article with me before we started recording about this Kinlan's Law.
It was written from the point of view of people that have been operatives in the CIA, which is pretty wild.
And they say you know this?
I'm going to read a little bit from it, but this really resonated with me a lot in terms of you know why.
You know what mark talks a lot about is like write it down, like get it out of your head on a paper, and it's why writing it down works.
When you're operating in a high stakes environment in the field at home hostile territory, neighborhood drama, foreign governments, corporate negotiations it's easy to get lost in the noise emotions politics, assumptions.
That noise is a liability.
Writing the problem in a single clean sentence forces you to cut through the fog.
You're left with what's real, observable, and actionable.
You can't build a strategy around emotion, but you can build one around facts.
I think it's a really cool just, there's so much.
I think of when people are going through high stakes, high stress, high emotion.
You know the eyebrow situation.
It's so the mind can actually act more like a kaleidoscope, you know, where there's actually no clear picture but lots of different shapes and fragments and things kind of coming and going.
And you never get to sit down.
And as Mark said, like, look at it, slow it down.
And there it is.
When you write it down like what are my options, and you go A, B and C wow, that's so different than this thing coming in, an emotion attached to it, this other thing coming in a judgment, this other thing coming in a past experience, a fear from the future.
And it's you never really get anywhere.
This levels of awareness, which Mark just said, so powerful.
When we write things down, our awareness goes up.
It's so magnified.
Right.
Oh, my gosh.
There it is.
Look at that.
Then, as they said in the article, I can build a strategy, the intention.
I can build a strategy around this thing.
What are my options?
Okay, no, I could reach out to 10 different tattoo artists.
There's lots of them, as Mark said, in the area.
I really like that strategy.
And then I go and do it.
First one said no.
Second one said yes.
250.
Let's go and let's rock and roll.
And all of a sudden, now we're moving forward.
This kaleidoscope gets way more clear.
We have an understanding of the things that we can actually do.
We are so over the target on this.
One of the calling cards or hallmarks of the victim mentality, which I've spoke at length on some of the other shows I've been on with you all and, by definition, is a lack of or having no options.
Mm hmm.
And a lot of times that's simply because the options haven't been identified.
Awareness.
Okay.
And that was absolutely that PhD in psychology was swimming in the pool of.
I can't do anything about this.
Even though she could do something about this, which she ended up doing something about that.
And, yeah, so it plays right into the victim mentality.
Well, it's what you said as well, is once you identify as 30% upswing, right?
Because it's a really strange thing.
But even things that aren't empowering, things that hold us handcuffed, There's safety in that.
There's a weird sense of ownership and power in that.
And we want to do so much to follow through with that belief system.
Like there is nothing I can do.
And that just swims and builds and swims and builds upon itself until you work through an exercise like you had her go through.
You can easily get trapped in that.
Easily.
Easily.
Alan Watts said, the average person and the college professor are just as easily bamboozled by language.
You don't hear that word very often, by the way, bamboozled.
It's a great word.
It's a great word.
It's a great word.
And then also, you know, we'll either talk about it again or –
Yeah, when we get into the specifics of it, something that you mentioned is single and clear in the writing process.
So a lot of times questions, because they're kept in the head, they're all smushed together.
So for a box owner, should I... change locations and hire two new coaches.
Those are two separate things.
And when they're stuck together, the more things you stuck together should.
Should I change locations and hire two more coaches and switch up my marketing material and and go with comp train?
It just.
It's like like The more things get piled in there and it's very hard to section that out when it's in the head you get that lack of clarity.
You get that kaleidoscope.
And then also a lot of times people are asking themselves questions in negation.
How do I stop being so hard on myself all the time versus how do I start being more supportive of myself more of the time?
Those are two different questions.
And very rarely is someone going to take choice B or be able to formulate their words like that in their head, first and foremost because it's just a skill.
That's all it is.
It's a skill.
You don't have to have the PhD to pick up your pen and get your words on paper and think about your thinking and listen to a couple of podcasts like this and make some changes with the words and go.
Yes, I like that better.
I like how that looks.
I like how that feels.
That's an improvement on the story that I'm telling myself about.
Fill in the blank, check plus.
I just worked on my mindset.
That's how you work on your mindset.
Everybody is improve the words that you're using.
That's it.
You've talked about that before in terms of moving from vague, right?
And you have your... Soft talk.
Soft talk.
Thank you.
I was going to say, yeah, soft talk.
Soft talk might not come out just from these.
I think you have like seven, eight, nine of these keywords, maybes, shoulds, sort of all those.
The vague can also is, you know, this comes up in the article that the CIA article as well.
But you know, the examples they give is in personal life is like I'm always stressed and I'm behind.
As opposed to being specific with that and say I've committed to four weekly obligations that each demand five to 10 hours.
And I only have capacity for two, like what happens when you do it.
That specifically, is you're actually starting to formulate the answer as well, and this is why, in the very beginning, we said a well-worded question actually is you're halfway to solving it right.
I can't lose weight, no matter what I do.
Well Actually, I've been skipping workouts and I average about four or five hours a night of sleep every night.
Boom.
Like right now we figured out like this is something that we can control.
This is something that we can manipulate.
We are not bystanders in our life.
As Mark said, you are in control and you can't do these things.
So I really like that idea of.
Moving from vague to specific and maybe even like a in the specific, like fixed, like numerical things right, like the actual measurables of it.
Let's reach out to five different.
It's like also it's like, but like the mind changes instead of like, well, what if you soft talk?
What if you thought about soft talk talking to some tattoo artists?
It's like OK, but like when, the level of clarity, again awareness that moves when you get from this vague to specific is so powerful.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's it's it's easy to do that.
That part.
Let me let me take it out.
Let me back up.
I get those words jumbled sometimes.
It's simple to do.
It can be quite challenging, so easy, to take out some soft talk.
Maybe I need to spend some more time with my wife.
I take that maybe out, and now I've got a solid statement, and I'll know whether it's true or not.
I do.
I do need to spend some more time with my wife.
That soft talk in there, you can maybe around that all day long.
It's almost like I'm not taking my gym membership as serious as I could.
Take out the almost like.
I'm not taking my gym membership as serious as I could.
Take out the gym membership, put in myself.
I'm not taking myself as serious as I could.
And then you start walking that back and the hotter it gets, the closer you – so you start taking the language and turning your awareness back in on yourself, because that's usually where it ends up.
And it gets spicy.
It's a ruthless path.
I understand when people don't want anything to do with it.
I also understand when people do want everything to do with it.
Because, I mean, we're speaking to the right people here.
Your people are not afraid of pain.
They're not afraid of suffering.
That's what they do every time they go in the gym.
And guess what?
If you want to get some, there is Murph for your mindset.
Pick up that heavy ass pen.
We're not going there today.
Pick up that heavy ass pen and write out the top 10 scariest specific events that's ever happened in your life.
Title them.
Write them out.
Full sentences, airing on the side of more detail than less, and get those fucking things out of your head which they're taking up a lot of space like buoys out in the ocean.
Just not good enough.
Sending out these pulses of information.
That is diametrically opposed to how most people want to live their life and their adult life, which is feeling connected and confident and building something and being a part of something and being seen and enjoying their life.
That's where a lot of people's telephobia, the fear of not being good enough, is coming from those top ten give or take scary stories.
And, you know, you want a Fran, pick up that pen.
Go in there.
Write them out.
Because I guarantee – I can guarantee to an almost –
9999 of the time.
People keep their scariest stories in their head, and psychological and emotional indigestion is a very real thing.
You do not digest that stuff.
It does not go away.
It doesn't work like that.
The story has got to come out.
It burns going in.
It burns going out.
Just like a spicy Thai dish.
I get it.
I laugh at that, too.
I think that's funny, too.
Real quick.
I do want to get into the – I want you to walk folks through this exercise Kinlan's Law, so they can walk away with something actionable.
Before we do, though, you just said – you just had a phrase, it's a ruthless path.
You talked already about being Switzerland and oftentimes in your coaching sessions, you are Switzerland.
If you don't like that idea, I'm not going to take personal offense by it.
I bring all that up how do we in this exercise and maybe this is the way we can get into the sort of workshop end of this, but how can we ensure that we are in fact Switzerland, or acting as Switzerland for ourselves in a process like this?
How do we make sure we don't go in there and start lobbing hand grenades at ourselves, such that we actually are doing more damage to ourselves than this exercise can do for us?
Got it.
Very simple.
Whether you're working with yourself or someone else, it always starts with, do I want to do this?
If the answer is no...
It's your life.
It's your story.
Or maybe it's 60-40.
If enough of you wants to do it, do it.
If enough of you doesn't want to do it, don't do it.
None of my business.
So if someone comes in and they want help, okay, great.
That sets the stage.
When I'm helping people... facilitate kindlin's law it's it's what do they prefer that's a very important word so when we get the stories when we get the and someone can not write i i give that option too when i go into to gyms i'm like okay here's what we're going to do and if you don't want to do it phenomenal just observe you'll you'll get something out of it And most people do because most people they want to get better in this environment.
There's some people out there that don't and that's cool too.
And the word prefer.
I tell the coaches, be creative with your clients and unattached.
Okay, take out... could, and put in can.
Yeah, I like that better because it's more action oriented.
Or take out could and put in can.
I can sign up for a gym membership.
Oh, no, no, that's too much That's too much.
I prefer could because it's not as committal.
Meet your clients where they're at, stay unattached to what they respond best to, and that's clean.
And as far as to take that concept one step further, because most people haven't heard it, clean coaching.
I've got a mile wide line in the sand when it comes to helping people with those scary stories that we talked about.
If someone has a scary story in their head and they want to go in there, I will go in there with them.
I know what I'm doing.
If someone has a scary story and they do not want to go in there.
You couldn't pay me a million dollars to go in there.
I'm not going in there.
I'm not nudging.
I'm not telling them something like, you know, you really need to work on that.
I don't know that.
I don't want to know that.
Which one more thing on the answers versus questions part of the conversations, and then we can run this.
Hell on earth, and I've lived it.
Hell on earth for mindset coaches in this space is thinking that you have to have all the right answers.
That's hell on earth.
Heaven is when you realize that you don't have to have all the right answers.
And wisdom is when you don't want them.
Real wisdom in the mindset coaching space is when you do not want to have the right answers for your clients.
God could come down and say here Mark England, here's all the perfect bullseye at 1000-yard answers for all of your clients, for the rest of your career.
And I'd go, I'm okay.
I'm good.
I've got good questions.
I've got my breath.
My clients have a pen and paper.
That's enough.
I'm serious when I say that.
I'm serious and I'm sincere.
Clean coaching.
Yeah, and that keeps things creative.
If I know all the right answers, then I'm missing a lot, because there's a lot that happens in coaching sessions that's of a creative instantaneous, intuitive nature.
Even though I don't really like that word, it's real.
It's just overused in the fluffy space that if I'm waiting to talk because I know exactly what they need to hear, I've got the right answers.
I'm missing out on so much stuff and it's not playful enough.
It's not creative.
It's not interesting.
It's not fun.
One of the reasons I'm doing this for 50 years I'm 18 in is because I find this style of coaching very fun and entertaining and creative and collaborative.
And it feels good.
So trust me, there are different styles and approaches, questions and answers.
There's a lot there.
I think that's actually.
I mean, I know that was in the coaching context, but hell on earth, I think as an individual is also thinking you need to have all the answers, because that generally stops us from even asking the question.
And then wisdom is not I love that wisdom is is letting go of the need to have the answers, knowing that in your back pocket you've got this wonderful tool called the question.
Yeah, I don't... That's fantastic.
I love that.
And perfection syndrome.
Having to have all the right answers and perfection syndrome those are pretty close.
Perfection syndrome is a very sneaky flavor of imposter syndrome.
I'm going to wait until everything's perfect, and then I'm going to go do the thing.
Oh, you mean you're not going to go do the thing.
Because nothing is ever perfect.
No, no, no.
But I'll lie to myself and keep myself safe from being seen.
Soco phobia, the fear of being seen.
That's a big one.
I'm not going to go compete.
People might see me.
Can't have that.
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Let's get into it.
We've got about 15 more minutes.
Let's give everybody out there listening some homework.
How do they actually do it?
Execute this practice?
Okay, are you gentlemen, still up for the thing we talked about earlier?
Okay cool um, so do you all have?
Ben and patrick, you have pen and paper?
Okay, look look at it they're, they're holding it up.
Everybody at home, get some pen and paper.
Hit pause, Get some pen and paper.
Now that you've got pen and paper, three questions.
We'll keep it because we've got 15 minutes.
We'll keep it quickish.
Three questions.
They could all be about your personal life.
Three questions.
They could all be about your professional life, your career, a project that you would like to do, something that's going on now, something that transpired three years ago that's still in your mind.
How do I gain resolution about that thing with Dave?
Yeah.
It could be something you want to do, I might have already said it, in the future.
It could be two things about your personal life and one thing about your professional life.
You can ask... The main...
Don't worry about the size of the question.
Just the fact that you're doing this.
You can apply it to larger questions, more intimate questions later.
Just the fact that you're doing this is a massive win.
Most people have never done this.
And so we're going to get three questions written down about whatever.
And here's more of the specifics on the writing.
You want one thing per question.
So like I said earlier, do we change locations and hire a new coach? and get on the...
Call somebody about CompTrain.
Those are three different things you would want if somebody was like okay well, here's what I want.
Okay, great.
Do I change locations?
Question mark.
Do I hire a new coach?
Question mark.
Do we implement CompTrain?
Question mark.
Okay, that's what I'm talking about.
One thing per question.
It's very important.
It's hard to get clarity when you've got molt.
It's very hard.
I like those words a lot, Ben.
You get the kaleidoscope.
The more stuff you stick in there, the more fractals you get.
And make sure it's stated in affirmation.
Okay, so how do we not have our gym membership fall off in November?
Okay, not forcing me to stare at what I don't want.
How do we retain our gym membership in November?
How do we increase our gym membership by 10% in November?
So state them one thing per question, full sentence, a full sentence.
So I don't make the rules, not lose members in November.
Mm-hmm.
A full sentence.
Make sure it's one thing per full sentence and make sure it's stated in the affirmation excuse me in the affirmative.
That right there, those three metrics are gold.
There's some other stuff.
And that's plenty.
And so what we're going to do, we're going to draft them as in just like in high school.
You get them on paper, get this in it and then we're going to play with the words and potentially make them better.
Better questions get better answers.
Better answers create better everything.
And then we're going to get some breath in there.
So this is drafting, crafting, and supercharging.
First things first, we're going to draft.
Then we're going to tinker with the words craft.
And then we're going to read them and get some breath in there.
And what the breath does, everybody, is it creates...
Very important space.
I mean, your mindset.
Your mindset is the words and breath.
Okay, good luck separating your breath from your words, especially when you're talking.
Stressful stories kept in the head.
Okay, breath trapped in the chest.
They go hand in hand.
It's part of the same magic.
And when we get better words and better breath, when the breath loosens up, the idea can sink into more of us than just if it's statements are kept in the head or questions and the breath is trapped in the chest.
A lot of times people don't verbalize their questions.
So there's an element of putting yourself out there and also bringing this stuff into you.
Listen, there's so much we don't know about humans.
We're magical creatures.
I don't like to use those words very often.
We're mysterious.
We're magical.
There's an energetic component to us.
Tell me what the imagination is, everybody.
What is that?
I'm living in two worlds.
That's weird.
No, I'm going to use my work and create some different and better pictures and then use that hallucination to move forward in my real world and make that happen in my real world.
What the hell is going on there?
That's weird and real.
We all do it all day long.
Anyway, I rant.
I rant.
Okay, so gentlemen, do you all have questions written out?
Yeah, a couple.
Yep.
Okay.
Let's go.
Okay, very cool.
So what we'll do is I'll work with each of you individually with the draft.
You just read them, and I'm going to listen, Ben.
And then I'll go to Patrick, and he'll read them, and I'll listen.
And then everybody at home, say it.
It's okay.
Say it out loud.
And then I'll go back with Ben, and he and I, because it's a team sport.
When I'm working with Ben, it's Team Ben.
We're on Team Ben together.
We're going to play with the words and whatever words.
My only job is to find out what words he prefers.
Not know some stuff that he doesn't.
I'm not going to outsmart that dude.
And then I'm going to go do the same thing with Patrick, and then we're going to go and then say the crafted version, with some breath in there, so create some more distance and space, and then see what happens.
See if any answers come.
All right.
So my first one is, what does a good life mean to me?
And by what virtues or standards will I use to judge whether I'm on the right pursuit?
Okay, perfect.
Ben, what's the difference between having those questions in your head and having them written down?
Well, it's what we talked about previously, but when they're in the head, they also go with everything else that's in my head.
Everything from like, do I like the sneakers I'm wearing right now?
I should check the leaderboard, because people have done the workout since I posted, and am I still in the same spot?
I have to remember that my son's game got moved to the middle of the week, which it never is.
All the things.
Our head is a soup.
It's a kaleidoscope.
That's so good because it's in there with everything else.
Yes.
Sorry.
I got to get this out.
Okay.
Patrick, please read yours.
I got one.
I got, this is work related, but how do we increase the lead flow at the gym?
Perfect.
Is that any other questions?
One's phenomenal.
Most people don't have one.
No, let's let's just go with that one.
Okay, phenomenal.
And same question for you.
Then I'll go back to Ben.
We'll be out of here in six minutes.
What's the difference between having that question in your head Patrick, and having it written down?
I think what I love about writing it down is it's something that I've been thinking about and asking myself, but it's asking myself in that sort of like, in between stages of the day.
So you have only enough time and attention to ask the question, but never enough time and attention to actually come up with an answer.
And so writing it down is like OK well, that's the first step in giving it the time and attention it needs to actually come up with an answer.
Yes.
That's the draft, everybody.
Same thing with a goal.
If you have a goal, if it's in your head, you don't have a goal, you've got a dream.
Unless it's written down, it's not a goal.
Same thing here.
It's written down.
That's the draft.
Okay, Ben, read that first question, please.
What's a good life mean to me, and by what virtues or standards will I use to judge whether I'm along that path?
Okay, cool.
What does a good life mean to me and?
Take out the and, turn that into two sentences.
What does the good life mean to me?
By what virtues and standards will I use to judge it?
Very cool.
Read that first sentence.
What does the good life mean to me?
Take out the, the good life.
Take out the, put in my.
What does my good life mean to me?
Take out my, put in our.
What does our good life mean to me?
Which do you prefer, the my or our?
I would say...
I would say the because to me this is like a – it's a theoretical.
But when I say what does the good life mean to me, I'm not saying it needs to be the same, owned by everybody.
But to me it's like what does –
High character.
What does success like?
It's the term, right?
It's what does the term mean to me?
Mm hmm.
Okay.
Very cool.
And I know a little bit about that.
He's a family man.
Okay.
And so that's why I
Put those three variations in there.
And I kept it clean because I always do.
It's what does he prefer at the end of the day?
What does the good life mean to me?
Let's put a timestamp on the end of that thing and see what happens.
Now could put now in there, could put this year, this decade, next year.
What does the good life mean to me this year?
And a lot of times when you put some time in there, it can focus.
And sometimes that's a good thing, quote unquote.
Sometimes they like it.
Sometimes they don't.
And if he likes that question as is, that's the bullseye.
Again, we're playing.
Yeah, what do you think about that timing?
What does a good life mean?
So if I was to think of that, it would not be now.
I would reframe it to when I am on my deathbed.
Looking back, what will I have said a good life looked like?
So that's my ultimate question, right?
And maybe cheat code, but I ask myself this almost every day.
This is my question.
It helps me say, like, these are the things I should be pursuing.
So when I am on my deathbed, what will I have said that I'm happy?
What will I have said is a good life?
And am I living that through the virtues today?
And you could take that and turn it into a statement.
When I'm on my deathbed, I will say, I did this.
I did that.
We lived well here.
All these things.
So then that setup is going to force you to answer.
Sometimes you've got to go ahead and answer the question.
What could you currently say now if you were on your deathbed?
That would be yes, that was the good life.
That was high level there, high level there, high level there.
And I bet if, given 10 minutes, he's going to get at least 10 things that he could say evidence-based now that fulfill that criteria.
Yeah.
So it then becomes a statement is when I am on my deathbed, I will say that I have lived the good life by dot dot dot.
Yes.
Yeah.
And and sometimes the interaction flows that way, everybody.
And we got there through a question.
Let's go to Patrick real quick, just for time's sake.
Read your question again.
Yeah, how do we increase lead flow at the gym?
This year, next year, Q4, Q1, 2026.
Yeah, great.
How do we increase lead flow at the gym in Q4 perfect, and just for specificity sake, i'd put in q4 2025.
Yeah, because the subconscious mind, even though i don't know much about it, it it likes specificity agreed.
Yep, you know.
So go ahead and read that, patrick.
How do we increase lead flow at the gym in q4 of 2025?
What happened when you put Q4 2025 in there?
It immediately brought it down to what is what is within reason in terms of actions that we can take, that we can basically put into practice right away.
So instead of big, slightly undefined, you know, quote-unquote strategy, it's like, since we're already in q4, it's like what can we do basically now to increase lead flow at the gym?
And because he's looking at what can we do now, he's going to get answers to what we can do.
Yes.
Yep.
It's just that simple.
The reticular activating system, everybody is a lens.
It's just like a pair of binoculars.
Things go in and out of focus and you're hitting those paddles with your words.
We could continue with this, and that was very fun.
Gentlemen, thanks for playing.
You guys are very very, you're apex predators in the game and I appreciate you all playing with your words in front of everybody.
That takes some vulnerability, and I'm sure the audience appreciates that too.
And that gave everybody a look at what you can do with questions once they're written down.
We had an existential question that turned into a statement of what he's going to say.
So what's more big picture than, you know, Deathbed, life lane, memory lane, strolling.
And then we got into Q4 lead gen with Patrick.
So that's a very good example of the range that you can play.
You can do anything.
You can do anything with it.
How do you know?
Maybe wrapping this up, we've got drafting crafting, and then I think you said supercharging was part three.
If we don't have listeners out there, if we don't have a Mark England or an enlifted coach working with us, how do we know when we've reached?
Ah, there it is.
Now we can go and do something with the statement versus let's continue drafting, let's continue crafting.
How do we like, how do we know like ah, we've got it.
Good question.
You'll feel it.
Most people will feel it.
And this is a very important point.
Once the words are out of your head, the tension, the tightness, the stress level comes down, the breath loosens up and you're more sensitive and i mean not like sensitive and crying all the time you sensations.
You're more sensitive to the feedback that you get on a daily basis about your life.
Breath trapped in the chest, head on fire, traps all locked up, butthole puckered, can't quite take TMI.
You can't hear any of the subtle whispers that life definitely gives to us.
But you get some of that stuff out, junk out of your head, and wow, yeah, now I can actually see it.
And then you play with the words and you're like, then you just get that intuitive hit.
And you can feel the thing because there's not as much static and friction in the way.
So you really do, you bring another sense online.
Any questions sufficiently worded and written down is half answered.
Mark, I always love talking to you.
Thank you so much.
Both of you gentlemen.
Thank you.
Once again, it's always a privilege and an honor to come on.
Appreciate it, Mark.
Thank you, man.
Likewise.
Thank you so very much for tuning into the show this week.
Two quick things before we go.
The first.
If you want even more from this episode, I do recommend you check out the full listener guide, where we break down all the big ideas.
We ask reflection questions.
We give you steps to put these ideas into action.
The link is in the show notes.
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