Mark Monchek is the Founder and Chief Opportunity Officer of Opportunity Lab, a strategy and facilitation consultancy helping mission-driven organizations grow thriving, resilient businesses that create abundance for everyone they touch. In today's episode of Smashing the Plateau, you will learn how you can find the resources for exponential opportunity. Mark and I discuss:

• The blurring of the lines between employees and consultants [03:42]
• How to think about your resources and your value [05:10]
• An exercise to develop a generosity mindset [7:49]
• How consultants and coaches can leverage their resources [14:55]
• His own future opportunity [18:30]

Mark is the author of the Amazon nonfiction bestseller Culture of Opportunity: How to Grow Your Business in an Age of Disruption. Mark has worked with leaders from Google, Apple, JPMorgan Chase, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Adorama, TerraCycle, Feltsberg, The New York Times, Wharton School of Business, New York University, Columbia University, NBC, Time Warner, and the United Nations. He’s been featured in Real Leaders, The Better Business Book, the Organization Development Review Journal, Lifetime Network, WPLJ, WCBS, Newsday, Working Women Magazine, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Mark has a passion for helping leaders grow organizations that are catalysts for a better world and believes that a strategy only works if you take every part of a business into consideration. He uses innovative but tested facilitation techniques to help leaders and teams identify their gaps and blind spots, lean into their strengths, and amplify their impact in a changing marketplace. Learn more about Mark at https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmonchek/, https://opplab.com/ Thank you to Our Sponsors: The Smashing the Plateau Community https://community.smashingtheplateau.com Circle https://smashingtheplateau.com/circle

Mark Monchek: 00:00:00

Bruce Springsteen had a very simple quote, which I love.

Mark Monchek: 00:00:03

"Nobody wins until everybody wins", and that is the world that I want to

Mark Monchek: 00:00:07

help create, where there is abundance for everybody and not just a zero

Mark Monchek: 00:00:11

sum game where some people win and other people are plained losers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:22

Welcome to Smashing the Plateau.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:25

We help consultants, coaches, entrepreneurs, and small business

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:29

owners build their businesses after long careers as employees.

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We believe you should be able to do what you love and get paid

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:37

what you're worth, consistently.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:40

I'm your host, David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:42

Today on Smashing the Plateau., I'm speaking with the Founder

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:46

and Chief Opportunity Officer of Opportunity Lab, Mark Monchek.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:51

In today's episode, you'll learn how you can find the resources

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:54

for exponential opportunity.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:56

Stay with us to hear all the details.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:00:59

How do you feel about where your business is today?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:02

Most of us do our best work in collaborative, supportive environments.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:07

Come explore ours.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:09

The Smashing the Plateau Community can help you build your business

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through live events, a private communication platform, accountability

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:17

partners, and lots more resources.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:20

Speak to me or one of our community members to learn more.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:24

You can schedule a quick conversation at smashingtheplateau.com/15.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:30

That's smashingtheplateau.com/15, or go to our website smashingtheplateau.com.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:38

Now let's welcome back Mark Monchek.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:40

Mark is the Founder and Chief Opportunity Officer of Opportunity Lab, a strategy

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:46

and facilitation consultancy, helping mission driven organizations grow,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:51

thriving, resilient businesses that create abundance for everyone they touch.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:01:57

He's the author of the Amazon non-fiction Bestseller Culture

of Opportunity: 00:02:01

How to Grow Your Business in an Age of Disruption.

of Opportunity: 00:02:05

Mark, welcome back to the show.

Mark Monchek: 00:02:07

Thank you, David.

Mark Monchek: 00:02:07

So happy to be here.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:08

It's great to have you on again.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:02:10

The last time you were on Smashing the Plateau, which was in the fall of 2021, we

discussed: 00:02:16

Why respect, collaboration and communication drive post covid success.

discussed: 00:02:23

So we're now another year into Covid or maybe getting somewhat past Covid.

discussed: 00:02:29

What's been happening in your world since then?

Mark Monchek: 00:02:31

I like to call this episode, Reforming the Plateau, because

Mark Monchek: 00:02:35

I think we certainly have smashed it multiple times and now like what

Mark Monchek: 00:02:38

is it actually happening right now?

Mark Monchek: 00:02:41

So I've been really thinking a lot about this great reawakening, people have

Mark Monchek: 00:02:46

called, this period The Great Resignation.

Mark Monchek: 00:02:48

We've heard a lot about quiet quitting.

Mark Monchek: 00:02:50

We hear about, the massive disruption.

Mark Monchek: 00:02:53

My book came out in 2017 when I thought disruption was really dramatic, and now

Mark Monchek: 00:03:00

it's just been disruption exponentially.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:03

So to me, David, I'm thinking about what is the actual reality of the

Mark Monchek: 00:03:07

people that listen to your podcast.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:09

You know, the coaches, the consultants, the entrepreneurs, small businesses,

Mark Monchek: 00:03:12

And I love at our episode today to talk about what is the way we think

Mark Monchek: 00:03:17

about our business may be so different than what we thought about it before

Mark Monchek: 00:03:21

Covid happened, in the early March.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:23

2020, there were certain things we held sacred.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:26

People go to work every day or almost every day in a building,

Mark Monchek: 00:03:29

in a physical building.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:30

And the social contract between the employer and the employee has

Mark Monchek: 00:03:35

very definitive things that the employee must do to get a paycheck.

Mark Monchek: 00:03:39

A lot of those things have dramatically changed since we talked even last year.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:43

So one of the ways I look at it is I think employees are,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:48

in the past, have been compensated in large part based on input.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:54

You get paid, like you said, you show up in a physical space for a certain number

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:03:59

of hours per day or per week, and that is often a lot of the basis of, compensation.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:06

Yes, there are performance guidelines and you're expected to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:10

be able to create certain outputs and outcomes for the employer,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:15

but it is, it's very input based.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:17

Whereas for consultants, you get paid primarily based on the outcomes

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:23

that you produce for your clients.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:25

And I think the line between the two has been blurred somewhat over

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:04:29

the last two and a half years.

Mark Monchek: 00:04:31

Oh, absolutely been blurred and I think now employees who I think of

Mark Monchek: 00:04:36

as free agents, I think every employee in a knowledge worker, sphere is much

Mark Monchek: 00:04:41

more like a free agent than, somebody who's an employee who clocks in and

Mark Monchek: 00:04:44

clocks out and gets paid for their time.

Mark Monchek: 00:04:48

I think, coaches and consultants, while theoretically they get paid for their

Mark Monchek: 00:04:53

results, they actually do often build time and they actually somehow think

Mark Monchek: 00:04:58

that they have to work a certain amount of time to get paid for that result.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:01

So I think even for coaches and consultants, which I think is your

Mark Monchek: 00:05:04

audience, it also requires us to rethink the idea of what we're

Mark Monchek: 00:05:08

actually offering to our clients.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:10

Yeah, very much and one of the things that I talk

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:13

about to coaches and consultants is how important it is to focus your pricing

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:19

and your agreements with your clients based on the value that you create

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:23

,rather than based on your input.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:25

Because I've yet to meet a client that's really concerned about a consultant or

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:05:31

coach's input into the relationship.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:34

Yeah, exactly, and also David, with the community

Mark Monchek: 00:05:37

that you've created at Smashing the Plateau, you have access.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:41

You as one of your members have access to dozens and dozens of people.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:45

And if you think about the networks of all your members,

Mark Monchek: 00:05:47

literally millions of people.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:49

Just three degrees of separation from your direct members.

Mark Monchek: 00:05:52

So as a coach and consultant, you're thinking about, I'm not just offering

Mark Monchek: 00:05:56

what I can do, I actually have a network of people who I know directly,

Mark Monchek: 00:06:00

or I know indirectly that can offer a whole nother level of value to clients.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:04

So let's talk a little bit about that value, because I

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:06

know that is an area of your specialty.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:09

First of all, how do you recommend consultants and coaches think about

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:13

the resources that they can tap into through their networks and how they can

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:06:19

leverage those resources in the value that they provide through their work?

Mark Monchek: 00:06:22

David, this goes back to this whole concept of the growth

Mark Monchek: 00:06:25

mindset, versus the fixed mindset.

Mark Monchek: 00:06:27

And I know we all like to think that, we have a growth mindset and

Mark Monchek: 00:06:31

we probably do to a certain extent.

Mark Monchek: 00:06:33

However, I think when we think about the resources we have, we start to think about

Mark Monchek: 00:06:38

the people we know directly or the things that we have ourselves have done directly.

Mark Monchek: 00:06:43

But if you really think about how many people are in our extended

Mark Monchek: 00:06:47

network, three degrees of separation from us, it is quite vast.

Mark Monchek: 00:06:51

And in order to actually do that, you have to go from this scarcity mindset to

Mark Monchek: 00:06:56

this abundance mindset, which is way more difficult to do than we think because

Mark Monchek: 00:07:01

from the time that we are taught in school that everything is a zero sum game.

Mark Monchek: 00:07:06

So if you get an A, somebody else gets a B, somebody else gets a C, and there's

Mark Monchek: 00:07:10

a very limited number of spots at a university or in a sports team, or in

Mark Monchek: 00:07:16

whatever these external results that are children are taught to be, right?

Mark Monchek: 00:07:20

But in the abundance mindset, there literally is an

Mark Monchek: 00:07:23

unlimited amount of resources.

Mark Monchek: 00:07:24

Once you are aware that they actually exist and that you can access.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:29

So the mindset comes first.

Mark Monchek: 00:07:31

Mindset comes first.

Mark Monchek: 00:07:32

Yes.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:33

And if you are able to create this abundant mindset,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:37

what do you need to do next if you're going to be able to understand what

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:42

those resources are, where they are, and how you might tap into the value

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:07:47

of those resources for your business?

Mark Monchek: 00:07:49

Let me just give everybody a little bit of a mind exercise to help

Mark Monchek: 00:07:53

actually us concretize the fact that we have these vast and abundant resources.

Mark Monchek: 00:07:58

Becuase it, it sounds great, but how do you actually think about it?

Mark Monchek: 00:08:01

In LinkedIn, I think probably most of your audience and most of your members use

Mark Monchek: 00:08:06

LinkedIn pretty significantly as a major tool and platform to access resources.

Mark Monchek: 00:08:11

So if you have, let's say hypothetically you have 3000 direct connections on

Mark Monchek: 00:08:15

LinkedIn, which is not unusual for people who've been in business for 20, 25 years.

Mark Monchek: 00:08:20

How many people could you access three degrees of separation from you?

Mark Monchek: 00:08:26

So let's say you sent out an email to your 3000 connections and said,

Mark Monchek: 00:08:31

I am looking for a specific kind of person in a specific kind of

Mark Monchek: 00:08:36

industry, in a specific kind of place.

Mark Monchek: 00:08:38

Would you help me do that?

Mark Monchek: 00:08:39

So theoretically, of course not all of your 3000 will link to their

Mark Monchek: 00:08:44

networks and their networks, but theoretically, if they all did that,

Mark Monchek: 00:08:47

if they all took up your request, how many people would you be able to reach?

Mark Monchek: 00:08:52

Just take a guess.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:53

It's, three thou, if each person has 3000, 3000 times.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:08:57

3000 times, 3000.

Mark Monchek: 00:08:59

So yeah.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:00

Everybody doesn't have 3000, people who have 3000, like myself, have connections

Mark Monchek: 00:09:05

who have a fair amount of connections.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:06

So it's somewhere in the vicinity of about 15 million people.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:09

And there is an algorithm of LinkedIn, which LinkedIn used

Mark Monchek: 00:09:12

to make very easy to find.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:13

It's now not so easy to find.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:15

I don't know why, but you can actually find it.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:17

So this is something that blew my mind when I actually realized

Mark Monchek: 00:09:21

how many people are just three degrees of separation from you.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:24

And you begin to realize this when you're active in groups like yours.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:28

You go to conferences, you're around like-minded people.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:30

You start to find out how many people that somebody that you didn't even

Mark Monchek: 00:09:34

know you knew, that you run into know.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:36

So that's the ground that you live in to get to that, growth mindset

Mark Monchek: 00:09:41

when it comes to, relationships.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:43

The second part of it is the whole generosity mindset, which

Mark Monchek: 00:09:47

really is critical to actually having an abundance mindset.

Mark Monchek: 00:09:50

So when you know, when I'm in business and I'm meeting people, the first thing

Mark Monchek: 00:09:54

I ask them, which I know I've asked you many times, and you've asked me

Mark Monchek: 00:09:57

many times, because I think both of us share that generosity mindset is what

Mark Monchek: 00:10:00

can I do to support your business?

Mark Monchek: 00:10:03

And it's often a question people like, wow, you just met me.

Mark Monchek: 00:10:06

You spent an hour with me.

Mark Monchek: 00:10:07

You want to help my business?

Mark Monchek: 00:10:08

And why do I want to do that?

Mark Monchek: 00:10:10

Because if you're going to help me, I want us to be able to be in some

Mark Monchek: 00:10:13

sort of a generosity relationship, not just asking for something

Mark Monchek: 00:10:17

and then never giving it back.

Mark Monchek: 00:10:19

Once people get a sense that you actually care about them and want

Mark Monchek: 00:10:22

to help them, that triggers off their wish to want to help you.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:27

There's a great saying, I know.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:29

the common saying is "people do business with people they know, and trust."

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:33

. And there's an added component to this, which ties into what you

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:36

just described, which is "people do business with people they know,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:10:39

like trust and who care about them".

Mark Monchek: 00:10:42

Yeah, and typically that's people we meet in a setting

Mark Monchek: 00:10:46

where we get to talk to them.

Mark Monchek: 00:10:47

Maybe people who I would might meet on your podcast, and if you introduced

Mark Monchek: 00:10:50

me to many podcasts hosts that I've had great relationships with, but

Mark Monchek: 00:10:54

it could even happen in the spur of the moment where you meet somebody

Mark Monchek: 00:10:58

you think it's a random connection.

Mark Monchek: 00:10:59

I'll give you an example.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:01

Last Friday I was in Brooklyn to buy a used bike.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:04

I was riding.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:06

going over the Manhattan Bridge, I'm stopped at a light and a woman on a bike

Mark Monchek: 00:11:10

next to me says, your backpack is open.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:13

And I said, Oh, I didn't know that.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:14

She says, Would you like me to close it?

Mark Monchek: 00:11:16

I said, Sure.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:17

So she closes the backpack.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:19

I was so thankful, first of all, that I didn't, something didn't

Mark Monchek: 00:11:22

fall out, that she was so nice to recognize it and then to close it,

Mark Monchek: 00:11:25

we ended up having a discussion.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:26

So it turns out that she is a professor of social work at Medgar

Mark Monchek: 00:11:30

Evers College, which is part of the city University of New York system.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:33

I used to be a social work for 20 years.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:36

I used a lot of my social work education in, how I operate in business.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:40

So this is a conversation, David, that we're having at a stop sign

Mark Monchek: 00:11:44

before we enter the Manhattan Bridge.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:46

So at the end of it, I gave her my business card and I said, look, I'd

Mark Monchek: 00:11:49

be happy to, do some guest lecturing, I do a lot of guest lectures.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:52

Oh, we have an internship program where some of the interns might be

Mark Monchek: 00:11:56

loving to work at your business.

Mark Monchek: 00:11:58

So as a possibility, we could end up with some interns and I could

Mark Monchek: 00:12:01

end up doing some guest teaching just from that split second, her

Mark Monchek: 00:12:06

asking me if I wanted some help.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:08

Yeah, that's a a great example and a great story.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:10

So what can, what con consultants and coaches do to help them get into the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:12:16

framework of a generosity mindset?

Mark Monchek: 00:12:19

When you think about, and this is something you could do really as

Mark Monchek: 00:12:22

a kind of visualization exercise, if you close your eyes and you imagine and think

Mark Monchek: 00:12:28

about the biggest successes that you've had in your life, the situations where

Mark Monchek: 00:12:32

you absolutely needed help from somebody, and think about the people who helped you.

Mark Monchek: 00:12:38

The fact that some of those people you didn't even know before they helped you.

Mark Monchek: 00:12:42

Once you start doing that, and these people come to the screen of your mind,

Mark Monchek: 00:12:45

there is a chemical reaction in the brain, that gives off oxytocin, which is

Mark Monchek: 00:12:50

that we call that the, the love hormone.

Mark Monchek: 00:12:53

Serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter.

Mark Monchek: 00:12:56

All this chemical activity happens when we actually have this sense of gratitude.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:01

And so when you see how many people have helped you, that makes you want

Mark Monchek: 00:13:06

to then help them, and you probably could do the same thing for all

Mark Monchek: 00:13:08

the people that you have helped.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:09

So it's a constant sense of gratitude.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:11

And that gratitude really is what drives this ability to want to give back.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:16

And then of course, you want to be open because you're in that

Mark Monchek: 00:13:20

virtuous circle, not the vicious cycle of I don't have enough.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:24

Yeah.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:24

are there exercises like that you do?

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:13:27

Regularly that help you with your mindset.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:31

Yeah, absolutely.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:31

We have a program which is in my book, Culture of Opportunity: How to Grow Your

Mark Monchek: 00:13:35

Business in an Age of Disruption, which is called "Unlock Your Network" and within

Mark Monchek: 00:13:40

Unlock Your Network, we have a resource map, which is actually a digital map of

Mark Monchek: 00:13:44

the different resources that you have.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:47

So in the exercise we ask somebody to focus on what is the goal that you want

Mark Monchek: 00:13:52

to build this resource ecosystem around.

Mark Monchek: 00:13:54

Get them very clear on the goal, very clear on the result and then

Mark Monchek: 00:13:57

we ask them in this exercise, which we do virtually, we do it in person

Mark Monchek: 00:14:02

we also can do it via that we

Mark Monchek: 00:14:06

So, Audience close your eyes right now, who are the people, three

Mark Monchek: 00:14:10

categories, experts, connectors and accelerators, who you most need to

Mark Monchek: 00:14:16

help you with that particular goal.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:19

Think about the organizations.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:21

which could be corporations, universities, foundations, community

Mark Monchek: 00:14:25

organizations, professional associations, who you need to help.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:29

Think about the sources of capital you need.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:33

Think about the knowledge that you need, and think about the

Mark Monchek: 00:14:35

communication that you need.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:37

Those areas are part of the ecosystem of resources, and when you start getting

Mark Monchek: 00:14:42

to that habit of doing that, and we'd be happy to, you know, contact us.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:45

We can give you some suggestions, specifically some tools, you

Mark Monchek: 00:14:48

start to see your resources as an ecosystem, as a network.

Mark Monchek: 00:14:53

There's often very connected.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:55

Are there examples of consultants, coaches, and small businesses

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:14:59

that you can share of how they've leveraged their resources this way?

Mark Monchek: 00:15:03

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:03

I'm going to give you the one that really rang the bell for me, David.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:06

This was about, about 11 years ago.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:08

We were working with a nonprofit whose mission was to help people

Mark Monchek: 00:15:13

who did not know how to read who were not functionally literate,

Mark Monchek: 00:15:16

whether it be in reading or in math.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:18

And they wanted to put on a national summit about adult illiteracy

Mark Monchek: 00:15:23

to help them get their brand out there and help establish an actual

Mark Monchek: 00:15:27

certification for educators of adults.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:30

So teachers, right, all have certifications.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:32

It's required by the state that you teach in, adult educators do not.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:37

And there's a huge opportunity for that, which we help this client with, right?

Mark Monchek: 00:15:41

We asked them to put together, we developed a resource map for them to

Mark Monchek: 00:15:44

help put together this national summit.

Mark Monchek: 00:15:47

So in this resource map, they had 17 people, 26 organizations,

Mark Monchek: 00:15:52

5 markets that they operated in, 3 resources of capital, abundant

Mark Monchek: 00:15:57

knowledge, abundant communication, but only 3 sources of capital.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:01

So we did this small exercise with a handful of people, couple of

Mark Monchek: 00:16:05

board members, couple staff members.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:06

Then we said, All right, this is not enough to do what you want to do.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:09

Let's open it up.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:10

Let's bring in all the board members, all the staff members, and let's put

Mark Monchek: 00:16:14

a burning platform question to help really stimulate people's imaginations.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:19

What would you do?

Mark Monchek: 00:16:21

Who would you contact if you had three months to raise 3 million dollars?

Mark Monchek: 00:16:25

And if you couldn't do what you're out of business.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:27

So obviously this was a provocative, burning platform question.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:31

Suddenly, David, we had 26 new sources of capital come on the resource map.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:38

Three of them with the last name of Soros, as in George Soros and his two children,

Mark Monchek: 00:16:43

all who have very well to do foundations.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:46

People started screaming.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:48

Who knows George Soros?

Mark Monchek: 00:16:49

Who knows all these people?

Mark Monchek: 00:16:50

How come nobody said anything?

Mark Monchek: 00:16:52

You could hear a pin drop, David.

Mark Monchek: 00:16:54

The woman in the back who was very quiet said, I know George Soros

Mark Monchek: 00:16:58

and I know some of these people.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:00

Why didn't you say anything?

Mark Monchek: 00:17:01

Nobody ever asked me.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:05

This is a company, this is a nonprofit organization with 15 people.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:09

This woman sat literally 20-feet from the Director of Development,

Mark Monchek: 00:17:15

but there was never any mechanism to actually share these resources.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:18

So what happened?

Mark Monchek: 00:17:19

We did launch the first ever National Summit for adult illiteracy.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:24

We had resources from Harvard.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:25

We had a filmmaker from CNN who made a film about this.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:29

We had some entrepreneurs and they raised money and they actually did this event

Mark Monchek: 00:17:33

and they built a brand around it and they got to the next level of their development

Mark Monchek: 00:17:38

as a result of a tool that we developed.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:41

And that was the moment when I realized, there are unlimited resources we're not

Mark Monchek: 00:17:45

tapping into because of the mindset.

Mark Monchek: 00:17:47

And also there isn't a mechanism to do it.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:49

So can you go a little deeper in, in, your own realization

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:17:53

of the potential from this exercise?

Mark Monchek: 00:17:56

So it made me understand that every organization, no matter how

Mark Monchek: 00:17:59

small, no matter how seemingly under resourced, has the resources they

Mark Monchek: 00:18:04

need to get to where they want to go.

Mark Monchek: 00:18:05

And you have to shift the mindset, Number one.

Mark Monchek: 00:18:08

You have to have a mechanism, which is what we do, and unlock your, network.

Mark Monchek: 00:18:12

Now we call it unaccurate resources, and you have to have the ability to then

Mark Monchek: 00:18:16

follow up on the resources that start coming to you, which is that generosity,

Mark Monchek: 00:18:21

mindset where you're actually supporting the people who are helping you and

Mark Monchek: 00:18:25

people who are helping you, you're able to actually do something with it, and

Mark Monchek: 00:18:27

you're actually following up on those things that they are giving you help with.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:30

Mark, this may be somewhat of a loaded question, but in your

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:33

work, since you have the tools to be able to unlock these resources and see enormous

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:39

potential and see great abundance.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:42

Given the own size and scope of your business, where do you see your potential

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:49

in being able to leverage these tools, and what are your thoughts about where

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:18:53

you can go with this in the future?

Mark Monchek: 00:18:55

That's a great question and loaded question, difficult question, yeah.

Mark Monchek: 00:18:58

So we have been developing some digital online tools to teach this methodology

Mark Monchek: 00:19:05

and this mindset, which does not require me personally to be involved

Mark Monchek: 00:19:10

in every time we offer something.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:12

And that was a big mindset shift for me because I always

Mark Monchek: 00:19:16

thought, it's got to be me.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:17

I've got to be there and I've got to be there in a particular point in time.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:21

We then leveraged our staff, and so I would say our staff, we have

Mark Monchek: 00:19:24

five people in our organization.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:26

A lot of them do things that I never thought somebody else could

Mark Monchek: 00:19:28

do, but they do it not only well, but in some cases better than me.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:32

In some cases, we've actually gotten our clients to do things

Mark Monchek: 00:19:35

that we were doing for them.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:37

Which also creates a higher level of value for them, and of course, more time for us.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:42

So our next path is really designing this resource map, so it is more functional,

Mark Monchek: 00:19:47

more accessible, bring in more resources.

Mark Monchek: 00:19:50

We're developing a new program called Embrace the Future That's Already Here,

Mark Monchek: 00:19:54

which is really around the whole idea of processing, that there's a future that you

Mark Monchek: 00:19:58

can actually co-create once you have that higher level of mindset and consciousness,

Mark Monchek: 00:20:03

which we've talked a little bit about

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:04

today.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:05

Are there any resource that you're looking for that you might like to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:09

share that maybe somebody's listen who's listening has access to them?

Mark Monchek: 00:20:14

Yeah, so we are looking for relationships with people who have online

Mark Monchek: 00:20:17

networks that offer courses, digital courses live or recorded courses or

Mark Monchek: 00:20:24

communities like yours who want this kind of content, want this kind of program,

Mark Monchek: 00:20:28

that we think we can offer a great partnership with some of the things that

Mark Monchek: 00:20:31

we have developed over the years and our knowledge of the coaches and consultants

Mark Monchek: 00:20:35

community, which is your community, but also, we work with a lot of entrepreneurs

Mark Monchek: 00:20:38

and, privately, small and mid-market companies, which is our kind of sweet

Mark Monchek: 00:20:42

spot in the, in the consulting realm.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:44

Sounds great, I'm glad that we shared that.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:46

Is there anything I haven't asked you, Mark, that you want

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:20:48

to share before we close out?

Mark Monchek: 00:20:50

Yeah, so I'll ask the question of myself

Mark Monchek: 00:20:51

and I'll try to answer it.

Mark Monchek: 00:20:52

Maybe you can also answer it too.

Mark Monchek: 00:20:54

What is the most important shift that coaches and consultants and

Mark Monchek: 00:20:59

entrepreneurs have to make, and that is the shift of consciousness.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:05

This next decade going forward is really not about profits.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:10

It's not about material impact.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:12

It's around shifting your consciousness so you can actually

Mark Monchek: 00:21:15

have profits with purpose.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:17

You can actually have profits that are sustainable, yet can

Mark Monchek: 00:21:20

actually have an impact that truly makes the world a better place.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:24

Bruce Springsteen had a very simple quote, which I love.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:27

"Nobody wins until everybody wins", and that is the world that I want to

Mark Monchek: 00:21:31

help create where there is abundance for everybody and not just a zero

Mark Monchek: 00:21:36

sum game where some people win and other people are pained losers.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:40

Love it.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:41

If somebody wants to go deeper with anything we've discussed today, access

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:44

some of these resources that you've talked about or get in touch with you,

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:21:48

where would be the best place to go?

Mark Monchek: 00:21:50

If you go to a website, opplab.com, that's O P P L A B .com,

Mark Monchek: 00:21:56

you can sign up for our newsletter.

Mark Monchek: 00:21:58

We have a, monthly community group, which we call Opportunity Community.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:02

You could sign it for that.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:03

That's also free.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:04

A lot of the podcasts, including my previous appearances

Mark Monchek: 00:22:06

on yours are on there.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:07

And you can contact us directly through an email, Discover@opplab.com.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:13

Mark.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:14

I want to thank you so much for coming back and sharing what you've been up to

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:18

and some great insights on Smashing the Plateau today, my guest has been the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:22

Founder and Chief Opportunity Officer of Opportunity Lab, Mark Monchek.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:27

Thank you again, Mark, for joining us.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:29

David.

Mark Monchek: 00:22:29

Thank you.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:32

When you visit the Smashing of the Plateau website

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:35

at smashingtheplateau.com, you'll find a summary of each episode along with

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:40

the links we mentioned on the show.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:42

On today's episode with Mark Monchek, we learned how you can find the

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:46

resources for exponential opportunity.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:49

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David Shriner-Cahn: 00:22:51

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That's smashingtheplateau.com/circle.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:23:26

I'm David Shriner-Cahn.

David Shriner-Cahn: 00:23:28

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our show.