In episode 68 of the Potential Leader Lab Podcast, I'm excited to welcome Mark Panciera, CEO Emeritus of The Pacific Institute.

Mark brings over 35 years of experience inspiring leaders, teams, and organizations to achieve extraordinary results. A TED Talk presenter with over 1.5 million views and a Vistage Top Performer Speaker, Mark has worked with Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, healthcare systems, athletic teams, and nonprofits to drive human performance through the power of belief. Featured in Forbes, The New York Times, USA Today, Inc Magazine, and on ABC’s Wall Street Journal Report, he brings a unique blend of business acumen and mindset science to every stage.

Our Discussion

Mark and I explore the science behind beliefs, drawing on emerging researchthat supports the power of mindset. From synaptic firings to neuroplasticityand epigenetics, there's substantial evidence that we can reshape our beliefsat a cellular level. This discussion intersects with insights from influentialfigures in psychology and leadership, such as Angela Duckworth and CarolDweck, reinforcing the profound connection between belief and achievement.

★ Key Topics ★

03:30 Discovering Blind Spots, Transforming Life

07:21 Facing Fear and Embracing Change

10:20 Science Validates Power of Belief

14:38 Belief's Power: A Scientific View

17:35 Beliefs and Behaviors Metaphor

20:56 Embrace Lifelong Personal Growth

26:12 "Rising Through Anxious Transitions"

29:24 Judgment vs. Curiosity: Humility's Role

33:15 Cultivating a Positive Growth Mindset

35:37 Efficacious Leadership Impact

38:21 Self-Actualization for Others' Benefit

44:01 "Discover Inner Strength Within"

44:50 "Belief Transformation: Start with Small Steps"

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Find Mark Panciera

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Mark's Website

The Pacific Institute

Watch Mark's Ted Talk

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Perry Maughmer believes the world deserves better leadership; that in every human interaction there is the opportunity to either build others up or tear them down; and that leadership is the choice we make in those moments.

These beliefs led Perry to create the Potential Leader Lab. He wanted to offer those who share his beliefs the space and safety to explore transformative ideas, experiment with new behaviors, and evolve into the leaders they were meant to be and that the world needs.

This is a framework he has used again and again with his Vistage peer advisory groups and companies like Turn-Key Tunneling, Convergint, Haughn &  Associates, I Am Boundless, Ketchum & Walton, LSP Technologies, and Ahlum & Arbor.

Perry lives and works on the shores of Buckeye Lake in Ohio, in the mountains of northwest Georgia, and on the beach in Anna Maria, Florida with his amazingly creative wife Lisa. They have 2 rescue dogs and are intermittently visited by their 3 wonderful children throughout the year. Perry & Lisa are living life in crescendo and focused on exploring, experimenting, and evolving their vision of a life they have no desire to retire from.

Copyright 2025 Perry Maughmer

Welcome to the Potential Leader Lab, and I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today on episode 68, we are going to talk about how mindset matters. And we're gonna talk about how mindset matters with my guest, Mark Panciera, CEO Emeritus of the Pacific Institute. I hope you enjoy the conversation with Mark and I. As I told him in the, discussion, my whole goal was just to talk to somebody and get the neurons firing, and I think you'll see that we do just that because it is a pretty energetic conversation that we actually had to force it to stop at about forty five minutes. I think we could've gone another hour. I hope you enjoy it, and I very much appreciate Mark taking the time to do it. So without further ado, here's the episode.

Alright, Mark. So I think it would be great for the folks to hear exactly how you ended up sitting where you're sitting, because it's it it speaks to two things from my standpoint. It speaks to you know, it's an interesting story in and of itself, but also it speaks to your belief in the power and, and the impact of what you do at the Pacific Institute. So why don't you tell us your story?

Surely. Thank you, Perry. Well, interestingly enough, and it's the title of my TED Talk, from being an undertaker to breathing life into leaders around the globe, basically from burying the dead to breathing life into leaders around the globe. Yes. I was born and raised in funeral service. And, I actually brought the Pacific Institute, the company that that I'm now an owner of and CEO of Meredith by title, in, into our grief recovery program called Wings of Hope. Back seventeen years ago, it was taxed. I remember it fondly like it was yesterday, April 15, 02/2008.

But I brought a an organizational psychologist into our grief recovery program to help those that were challenged by the the, you know, the greatest remorse of their life, the loss, the death of a loved one. And, little did I know that it was gonna change my life. So I bring this individual in, fly him in from Seattle, and he put us through an exercise that, that created an awareness moment, one of those moments that that, that, you know, that that we somehow that we sometime have, but typically, we don't know that they're gonna occur. And at the Pacific Institute, we label those moments scotoma moments. The word scotoma means blindness or blind spot in Greek. And, he put us through this exercise. And, you know, being that my name was on the building and I had all the all the, material artifacts to prove that I was the boss apple sauce, I raised my hand. I said, no.

No. Here. I got the answer, and son of a gun if I wasn't absolutely wrong, with the answer. And and and that proved the point that, I was missing something. I was missing something that was that that was in plain sight, having this catoma moment. And from then on, and it was really an awareness moment, a moment for all those that were going through their grief journey, their grief recovery. And the literal translation for that event, for those participants was, you know, the you we're never gonna forget our loved one, but we need to now cherish their memory so we can move on to a healthy lifestyle, you know, post the remorse of the loss. Well, little did I know that I suffered a large loss.

I was somewhat broken because, you know, I thought I I I I got to the I I got to the top of the hill or I won the hill based on my own performance, but little did I know that I was really trading on the performance of generations before me. And so I ran after the Pacific Institute, which is expert in mindset, so I could bathe myself and really immerse myself in this extraordinary information and and basically burnt the boats on the family business, brought my wife in to run the company, and the rest is history. I started as a commission based only sales guy, scared as all get out. Oh, my gosh. And I, you know, I had big overhead then with, three kids, private schools, and the rest of it. But, oh, my word, did it change my life all based on that one discovery of what a scotoma was, an moment. And then I just began on the journey with action to, really chase after my dream, and that is discover my own blind spots in in a professional way. But, oh my gosh, did it absolutely, nurture, enhance, and and, propel my my personal existence as well.

That's awesome. So in in that time since then, you've been doing this work. And and and I guess my question is because I see it all the time in the work I do. I've had you come in and speak to the groups that I facilitate, and I've had the the the honor to to to participate and and hear your message. And it is it can be, I guess, a little, destabilizing for people initially, especially folks in in leadership role. So what have you seen since then with both you know, I'm not gonna call it the good and the bad, but across the spectrum, because this is not something I mean, it's and I'm sure you see this. Some some people are like, boom. They did it.

I'm I'm in a hundred per like you. It's like they have that they have that blinding flash of the obvious, and then they're all in. But then you have other folks that might resist that because it is, destabilizing and it challenges identity. And and how do you see that play out? Because I'm sure you've had people over the years that initially had a kind of a negative response or they didn't have an they didn't embrace it, but then they came back around at some point. Like, it's there is I guess, my terminology is there's a readiness issue for everybody. So how do you see that play out?

Surely. The first step in recovery is awareness, those awareness moments. And they could be profound like mine, but they could be very subtle. And I'm suggest and I'll suggest, I'll submit that once you're aware of those blind spots that we all suffer from, a cognitive blocking out. I mean, everybody needs to fact check me and and verify, you know, this this this little translation of these scotoma moments in our mind. But, you know, we have we all have subtle ones along the way, but are we willing to embrace and accept the changes that do throw us out of our of our proverbial comfort zone? Going back to the deep stabilization, what we teach at the Pacific Institute is that that cognitive dissonance is required for growth. And you teach that on all of your podcast. I see you smile.

Right? I mean, you're we we are absolutely aligned. And by the way, I was honored by your invitation to speak to your groups, and I have grown profoundly, you know, based on my uncovering, discovering, and and the awareness that you have provided for me in these very podcasts that I now am addicted to. And I'm not patronizing you. I'm I'm I'm saying that very genuinely. That said, destabilization is required for growth. Systems seek order. And so we need to throw ourself out of order.

Is

it gonna be scary? But and that's why I I wove that into that my my that was a seventeen year journey, Perry. I mean, that happened in o eight, and I'm still, dealing with some anxiousness about whatever next is because I'm 62 years old. But as Wayne Dyer said, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna die with music in me. And I got one third left, bro. I got thirty more years to do this. And so what is that next step? But what I'm not gonna do is suggest that we throw ourselves so out of order that it creates fear stress because that will that will debilitate us, not just destabilize us, but debilitate us, and we'll shrink back into our comfort zone. So I just wanna share with everyone that and by the way, when I made these changes, people don't have to burn the boats like I did. I was just ready, Perry.

I was ready because once again, third generation family business. I was on third base with all of the artifacts, all the bling to prove that I was on third base, but I thought I hit the triple. I thought I was the one who hit the three bagger. And I quadrupled the size of the family business, but I questioned myself. And we call it imposter syndrome. We got a title for it now. Right? But I I was questioning myself saying, okay. How did I get here? Is it it what you know? Can I assume responsibility for any of this and celebrate the success? So I questioned myself, but I said the only way I'm gonna be able to prove to myself that I have that entrepreneurial spirit that that folks wanna embrace or that I have the ability and that I'm not an that I'm not a poser.

Well, I need to stretch myself. And but but people don't have to do it as radically as I did. I will tell you that when I changed my lifestyle so radically, my wife said, you may wanna change radically, but don't mess with my lifestyle. Leave me alone. Right? My kid's the same. Right? So, you know, we've gotta do it in measure. But I tell you and and it's Lao Tzu, and and and I know you're you you love the stoics as well, or I should say the the philosophers as well. But the journey of a thousand miles starts with the first little step.

Right? The first little step. So for all the listeners, profound, so impactful. But these we have to and I think you said this in one of your last podcast. We've gotta be comfortable with discomfort. We've gotta be comfortable in that stretch period. And last point on this, I use the monkey metaphor of swinging from this vine to that vine. There's gonna be a point where you're in midair, and it's a little bit frightening. But darn it all.

Stay focused on what you want more than what you're leaving and just our teleological nature. It's gonna pull us there towards that next level of performance, but at the next level of, system reset. Back to you.

Yeah. I think that you made a you made a bunch of points. I I made a couple notes to revisit. And I think that overall that the most interesting thing and I and I'm sure in the years that you've been doing this, you've recently maybe seen this trend. And that is that some folks, you know, years ago, this this thought process around the power of what we believe, the power of what we think, the power of what we say, You know, it's existed for a while, but it was all, you know, esoteric and hippie and all of this stuff. Right? Now science has caught up. Now we have the science that tells us in things like, you know, Amy Cuddy did, like, the milkshake experiment where, you know, that. And they've done several experiments where they've got scientific data that shows that what I think, what I believe, colors what happens in my world.

Yeah. Like, it isn't just, hey, I'm gonna visualize this shit or that shit. I mean, it it really is about if you if you believe and think a certain way, it will impact what actually happens in your world. And there's such immense power with that because the opposite is true too. And I and I'm I'm big on word choice. And I and I hear people I mean, just had a meeting yesterday, and we were we were doing a lot of conversation. And I pointed out to folks, it think look at the words you're using. Yeah.

Because the the, you know, we we actually had a speaker, and we and we were talking about self talk and self compassion. And, you know, I often say that if the voice in our head were a person, we wouldn't be friends with it for very long.

Not known.

And it's and so that's mindset. That to me, that's part of mindset. How do I how do I envision myself? How do I see myself? How do I talk to myself? What do I do I offer myself compassion? Do I offer myself grace? And I think for this pursuit that you guys are on, that's the foundation for leaders. It's, you know, stepping back to that basic part and think and and accepting and acknowledging the fact that how I see the world impacts how the world's gonna be. And that's why the work that you do is so impactful and meaningful and necessary in my mind. So if you could, you know, take that and run with it. Tell me, you know, examples or or what you think, disagree, agree.

I look like a bobblehead. I agree with everything. Right? I'm bouncing up and down. I, in my mind I mean, well, I'm gonna talk about synaptic firings first. You talked about, the scientific methods behind proving or that there are scientific methods out there proving that, it's all about beliefs. Well, we can put our brain under a PET scan, CAT scan functional MRI. And and and based on our own thinking patterns, whether for good or for bad, you've got these synaptic firings going on. And I'm getting a little bit wonky here because I know you always want you you want the the technical, origins origins of these concepts you just talked about.

Before, it was just all esoteric and, you know, let's do a group hug and let it levitate together. But, no, now we can we can prove these concepts. So going back to the synaptic firings, we can prove that neuroplasticity is true. You can change the form of your brain by your very thinking. And so we've got, based on research, 50 to 70,000 thoughts going through our mind per day, and 8090% of our eighty eighty to 90% of them are negative. You know, what grows naturally in the garden? The weeds. That sounds like a platitude, but it goes back to our our reptilian brain. Right? Lions and tigers and bears, oh, no.

I think you've also talked about that in your podcast. You know, we have to we have to protect ourselves from the dinosaurs back when. But now, we can prove, the validity of the fact that not only is it all about beliefs, but you can change your beliefs at the cellular level. It's called epigenetics. So now based on those facts based on those facts and believing that it is all about beliefs and speaking about Vistage, Angela Duckworth, doctor Duckworth, the author of Grit, just spoke at the chair, the the chair conference. Right? The annual chair conference. And her last statement in an hour presentation, she's a researcher out of University of Pennsylvania Wharton. She said it's all about beliefs.

And you just emphasized that about this know the the the the notion it's all about beliefs. So we've got science to prove that you can change your beliefs. Doctor Duckworth, two thousand twenty five, March, just told us it's all about beliefs. But let's go back to some of the conceptual platitudes like Henry Ford. If you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right. Either way. Right? How about a hundred years ago, Napoleon Hill, before all this science? What the mind Napoleon Hill, think and grow rich. What the and by the way, he traveled the country for twenty years based on a commission study by one of the richest men in America at that time, Andrew Carnegie, because they wanted to find out what made the most successful people in The US, in well, maybe the world, but The US successful.

And he goes around and he and he interviews, presidents of The United States and and, Thomas hen Thomas Edison, Henry Ford. And after twenty years of study, 1917 to 1937, he comes back with the jet with with the generalized summary statement after a volume of work, what the mind of man can conceive can conceive, can picture, can picture and believe and believe it to be true with high efficacy, it can achieve. You can achieve it. It's what you just said. If you believe it, you can achieve it. Sounds like, once again, a platitude, but we can prove that to be true now through brain science, through academic research. We can call it affirmation. We can call it visualization.

I call it goal setting, man. I call it goal setting and then acting, basically, and PS, we've got a construct. Aware and you've gone through it with me. Awareness, acceptance, action, achievement with smart a smart goal setting construct because you gotta act. You can't just sit and I'm gonna I'm not dogging the secret, but I remember if anybody remembers this, the book, the the video, I remember there was a kid sitting on his porch and he had a thought bubble of a bicycle, and all of a sudden the bicycle appeared on the porch. Doesn't happen that way. Look at your smile. You're right.

I mean, like, it it doesn't hap you know that? It takes hard work. And at times, it takes that dissonance, that discomfort, but you need to act with specificity, with measurement, with timeliness. And that's when you're gonna move towards that replacement picture in your mind, but it all starts with beliefs. Back to you.

Well and I think that and I'm gonna build on that because you you kept using the word act.

And Too shy.

And I can't stress enough. So, you said earlier I like philosophers, and I do. And I'm I'm heavily into, you know, one of the foundations for me is existentialism. And one of the core concepts there is we act our way into being. And and I'm also fond of the saying, you can't think your way into a new way of acting. You have to act your way into a new way of thinking.

Love it.

Right? So it is, it is required. And and there's a sticker on the back of my, right over here on the back of my, iPad right here that says, you know, we're done when we're dead. And I and I and I say that because that's what I believe, and and I think that it's important for us to connect those dots that, you know, I I think and you said you talked about beliefs earlier, so I wanna tie that back in. So I I often draw this picture of, like, an iceberg. It's a really horrible picture. I'm bad at art, but it's essentially a triangle with a line across the top. So the top of the iceberg, bottom of the iceberg. The top of the iceberg's behaviors.

Yeah. That's what we see. Like, we see our behavior and we see other people's behaviors. We focus, but the problem is is what's under the iceberg are our beliefs about those behaviors because every behavior we have is connected to a belief that we have. But if we don't spend time challenging, revisiting, evaluating our beliefs, our behaviors never change, but all we talk about is behavior. You know, we don't wanna dig into the belief because if I behave a certain way, it's based on a belief that if I behave that way, something good's gonna happen for me. And and those things are programmed into us early in our life. And at some point, we have to reevaluate those and go, okay.

Do I still believe that? And is that serving me to the best of my ability?

So beautiful.

And I think that that's really the work that you guys do when you change when you challenge somebody, because that's what mindset is. It's a set of beliefs about the one and about myself. And and so we this work is internal. It's like we we're great at we're great at challenging other people's beliefs. Like, we all we all love to do that. We got no problem. We're we're experts. Just we're experts at that.

But then when we turn around and go, oh, wait a minute. I'm good. Like, you don't, you know, I don't I believe certain things. And then my challenge, and then I'm gonna ask you what you think is, the other part of this is when we start stating our beliefs as a fact. Yeah. Our beliefs are an opinion. We're entitled to them. Right? We're entitled to our opinions and our beliefs.

We are not entitled to state them as a fact. Yeah. Because once they become a fact, they're irrefutable.

Good.

And and they're also, if I state my opinion as a fact, then I've only left you two options, agree with me or be wrong. And and nobody wants that. Like, it shuts down everything. So it's one, understanding our beliefs and and being clear about what we believe, and then it's also understanding that is our right, but it's also a belief and a belief can change. And back to your point about mindset and grit and all of those things, growth only happens at the point of failure.

True shot.

And so if I'm gonna be in a growth mindset you know, Carol Dweck's work. If I'm gonna be in a growth mindset, I have to push to the point of failure. I hear people all the time say, well, I'm in a growth mindset. I read five books last year. I don't give a shit what you read last year. Like, you can read all you want. You can study all you want, but if you're not doing different, if you want things to be different, you must do different. Yeah.

And and so all of that that, the action, I can't speak so I can't speak enough about that it's it's a journey. You know, Cervantes said the journey is the end. And and I love and I'm not and if you you've listened to the podcast, I'm not a huge fan of goals. I mean, I get it, and and I don't have a and I and that's just my opinion. Again, not a fact, just an opinion because I believe they're they're terminal in nature.

Yeah. Right? It it

it gets us focused on something because this to me is a road you never get off of. Like, you you started this journey, you know, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years ago, and you just said, I got thirty more years. Like, you have done this thing. You have changed your identity. Mhmm. And that's what we all we should embrace that opportunity because if we're not embarrassed by who we were twelve months ago, we're not paying close enough attention. We should all be be malleable in our identity because as we go through life, that's and I I see it destabilized. Like, I see CEOs who are owners of companies who have nothing outside.

They're they're leaving their organization, and they're they're completely, like, they're completely in limbo because they had no identity. For thirty years, they were their company. Yeah. And and so all of that, I just spew out and pick out what you will and and run with it.

Well, my brother, I mean, you're spewing, and and I'm I'm buying everything you're selling. If you expected a contrarian today, well, you picked the wrong dude because I'm looking like a freaking bobblehead. Right? But, no, we we're aligned. But we're aligned not because, you know, we're loving on one another. We're aligned because of the facts based on millennia. This stuff was just not invented, and that's what was one of your earlier points. I wanna also tell you that your sticker's right talking to an undertaker, you will be done when you're freaking dead. So I wanna share that with you.

You're supposed to laugh at that because I remember what I mean. I can prove that to be true. You know, people say you the only two things in life. One is, taxes, the other is death. Well, you don't have to pay your taxes. You may go to jail, but you definitely gotta do the latter. Okay? So no. With the okay.

Also about the goal thing, I use I didn't even know you were against goals. I use that as a drop the mic moment, Perry, or against, be that construct. I wanna get back to it being a terminal end. I use it because people get weirded out when they hear visualization, when they hear affirmation, when they hear, you know, you know, picturing in your mind's eye what you wanna manifest. Manifest is another word that people get freaked out about. Right? And then they discount you. You know, they just say what you know, just just I I've I've heard enough. No.

I I don't wanna do, any Ayahuasca. I mean, there's a lot of this microdosing going around now. Yeah. And I wanna go back to what you said about below the water line. % right. Our emotional history, all of our habits, attitudes, beliefs, and expectations, our HABEs as we call them, the acronym, our mindset was emblazoned on our soul when we were children by teachers and parents and our siblings. And we go back into that emotional history below the waterline, as you said, the iceberg, to make decisions as adults. And and and we believe it to be fact.

We but no. No. It's a perception. And don't impose your perception as a fact on me. So you and I are fully aligned. And we go back to this whole notion of though we now you can't say, oh, I was born this way. No. No.

You can change your beliefs. You can change the beliefs at the core, but you've gotta stop yourself and and and and,

in in a self discovery kind of way. But, simplistically, just look at yourself

in the mirror, and you said that as well. But simplistically, just look at yourself in the mirror and you said that as well, because leaders can't say, oh, I'm good. It's on them. Because now with this multi generational workforce, leaders have to be, they they have to be so self aware based on the leadership impact that they have on others because it's their job as leaders to elicit, solicit, illuminate the potential in others to help them discovering the discover the beliefs. And here's a drop the mic moment that are limiting them, a a a beliefs that are leashing them and are holding them back, and recast them, giving them the tools for change to act upon changing a limiting but limiting belief to a liberating one, actually hacking your mind, which is possible. Lastly, about goals. We actually in our in our curriculum, we have a chapter, a unit called horizon beyond the horizon. We don't believe in the terminal end of goals.

And as you get closer to the horizon, Galileo proved that we're not gonna fall off the end of the Earth. Right? It took the Catholic church, like, five hundred years to forgive that guy for telling the truth. But when you get closer to the horizon, to the goal, to the to the to the to the, distal goal, you know, goal setting theory. Proximal goal, these are the steps to get there, but the distal goal well, you make it for you you may it's okay to do a time out. Okay, man. I'm here. But you always wanna look at the horizon beyond the horizon be so the journey continues. If not, you're going to say you're you're gonna end up in a comfort zone.

Yester today's gonna look like yesterday. And I don't wanna say stagnate, but you will. And going back to final point about that leader, I'll use me as an example. I I graduated from being a commission based only sales guy. Nobody knew. And, man, I was scared out of my wits going from bearing the dead. I didn't think I was able, but I had a network. That's how you build your funeral practice.

You belong to a bunch of different groups and so you do you're involved with civically. And I went to my network and I said, this is great information. Try it on for size, and it started to work. So it built my self efficacy in my network, and I and I rose to the ranks, but, oh my gosh, was I, was I, anxious along the way, whether it was cash flow, whether it was identity, whether it was, others looking at at on me as, why has he changed his identity? We knew him as this, and now what is he doing, you know, carrying a bag, selling that? It was weird for me, but I was so committed to that horizon beyond the horizon. I I roasted the ranks, had the opportunity to be an investor in the institute when our when our founder passed away and rose the ranks of CEO. But here's the point. I also knew, Perry, that what got us here and and and the and the title of the book, Goldsmith, I believe it is, won't get you there. Well, I wanna recast that.

What got us here, me, through COVID, high touch consultancy, I got us here. If I attempted to continue, it was gonna keep us here. Think about that. What got us here is gonna keep us here. And now I have, created succession plan. I brought a, a very bright gentleman, EQ, IQ Rich, ten years my junior, but more relevant in the marketplace with all the credentials, but he was an advocate of mindset, a devotee of it. He used our information for ten years in his companies. I replaced me with him.

He's the new CEO. I've got this title CEO Emeritus. And and now I'm just an advocate for this incredible information. But I knew, again, what got us here was gonna keep us here. I did a lot of great things, and I'm celebrating them. But I also knew that it was time for me to sunset on that stage of my career. Seventeen years ago, I made a change, making another change now. But now what am I gonna do for the next thirty? I'm gonna be on stages everywhere pontificating pontificating about this great information, and thank you for the opportunity for, for this to be that first step in my thousand mile journey.

Well, and I think too at the at the foundation of all that, you know, we talk about mindset. We talk about, you know, awareness and and self awareness and and grit and perseverance and and, and all of these things, growth mindset. And I think that they're so for me, I define leadership as the as the desire, the action to create a better world for those we care about.

Beautiful.

Has nothing to do with title, has nothing to do if you work, don't work in a for profit, nonprofit. If you're it doesn't matter. What matters is, do I wanna create a better world for those I care deeply about? And if you if you take action and do that, to me, that's leading. Now Beautiful. At the base of all the stuff we talked about for me, my opinion, I wanna state that clearly, is humility.

Oh, beautiful.

Because the only thing I can the only way I can learn because here's here's so when we're in judgment, like, when we sit in judgment as opposed to curiosity, because curiosity requires humility. Because I'm only curious if I admit I don't know. Right? If I wanna if I wanna do so I have to be humble. I have to have humility in order to be curious. If I'm on the other end of that in judgment, my belief is there are three things we can't do. They all begin with the letter L and they're the three most meaningful things in our life, as far as I'm concerned, my opinion again. And that's we can't lead, we can't learn, and we can't love

Oh, that's question.

If we're in judgment. So so moving to that other end of that spectrum. And by the way, and this is why all of this is so hard. Right? There's no answer. There's no formula. There's no there's no this is not, black and white. This is not binary thinking because when I look at it when I tell people about judgment and curiosity, it's a spectrum. And for leaders, you have to be in judgment a good part of the day because you are evaluating.

Is this good or bad? Is this right or wrong? Is it so it doesn't it doesn't mean we don't use judgment. It just means we don't default to judgment and sit in judgment of everything. Because to your point, the only way the only reason you went out and found somebody else to to take over for you at Pacific Institute is because you had enough humility to go, hey. I'm I'm good. Like, I got us here, and I'm all good with that. By the way, you had something else to run too. Like, you knew there was more for you and that this thing wasn't the thing anymore. This thing isn't where you could have your highest value.

For sure.

And so but that takes a sense of a deep sense of humility to do any of those things. To to even challenge my mindset, to challenge my beliefs takes humility. And for me, that that is the thing if we want if we wanna talk about the highest point of leverage, it's revisiting that because I will be quite candid with you. That is not my strong suit. Like, humility is not is not ranking up there on the list of things I'm, I'm naturally inclined with. And so I have to be hyper aware of it all the time because it will prevent me. My my lack of natural humility because I just wasn't that's not how I came up, and that's not what I'm comfortable with, will prevent me if I'm not careful of achieving those things and creating a better world for those that I care deeply about. So what do you think about humility?

Oh, my word. I mean, it's up there with gratitude. You know? It's, it's the unyielding fuel for for courage. I mean, when you're when you're humble, when you're grateful, it, it it catalyzes curiosity. It catalyzes discernment. You know, you talked about judgment. I wrote down the word discernment. I will tell you by the way, I pulled up.

I wanna make sure I pronounced it properly. My mantra, my motto is towards a better world. We didn't know that. It's ad malorium mundum. Ad malorium mundum, towards a better world. I I I'm careful now to say I wanna leave the world better than I found it because that's that sounds like like, it's full of scarcity. Like like, I'm better than others. You know? I I I it's all about abundance.

So it's towards a better world. And, but but it's linked to man, I wanna leave I I wanna leave whatever richness I can behind even if it's just through a freaking smile. Because a smile, when I translate and this is this is, research out of Dartmouth, you know, the the, you know, nonverbal communications. You can have you can cause synaptic firings in others and dopamine firings in others just by simple smiles. You can translate it without, without any other convey you you can translate at it with with just nonverbals, no other conveyance. And and, you know, we've got the CVS pharma. I don't want pharmacy in our mind. I don't want I don't want to, go too far off topic here, but but I believe it's important.

You know, we we've got the ability each day, to think about what we're thinking about and have those discerning thoughts towards negativity, cortisol, which affects our our wellness, which then allows us not to be so grateful. And it and it starts, you know, creating an environment where maybe we're on the wrong side of ego versus on the right side of ego, which to me is is efficacy, having the cause and power that you can achieve, the belief in oneself, which to me has humbleness woven in. But my point is is that we need to be in control of the CVS Pharmacy in our mind to drive dopamine, to drive adrenaline, to drive norepinephrine, that runner's high in our daily life. Not that we're always high, but is that we are in flow when it comes to a growth mindset. I wanna go back to your comment about growth versus fixed and Angela, excuse me, and, doctor Dweck. Marrying this all up, Angela Duckworth worked with doctor Dweck out of Stanford, I believe. Stanford University, if I'm not mistaken. I'm just trying to to marry up dots here.

But going back to humility, I was on the wrong side of ego at one point in my career. And I didn't realize it until I became self reflective or or or introspective and looked in the mirror and realized that my head my forehead was bleeding. And it's like, what in the hell is going on here, metaphorically speaking? And I realized that I wasn't breaking through. I wasn't having the achievement, the performance that I really expected for myself, thinking that I rose up to the top of this great mountain in Hollywood, Florida as an undertaker, when I realized I was on the wrong side of ego and I was beating my head against the freaking wall, and that's why it was bleeding. And and when I realized it was just a little molehill that I climbed. You know? Okay. Great. I'm I'm a rock and roll undertaker, but what else? How how is that towards a better world? I'm serving those that need to be served.

But when I became humble, I got on the wrong side of ego. At times, what is it? Is it Ryan Holiday? Ego is

that enemy.

I think. Right? Ego is the enemy.

Yep.

I what what I what I don't want to declare though is is that the energy behind efficacy, the beliefs in what the belief in your your causative power to make change, to to to, influence change in others as a leader, that's the right side of ego. And in conclusion, you have never come off to me as someone who is who is so headstrong that it's off putting. If if if anything, you you you come off as someone that is efficacious, someone that is that that wants to bring out the best in others and holds others up to a higher standard and challenges them to achieve for themself. So you're an illuminating you're you're freaking, you know, like like a White House, illuminating their potential, but but not putting up with any bullshit. You used that word early. I'm gonna use it now. If they neglect to use their own internal superpower, you're not gonna tolerate, laziness. So that's how you how you have impacted May.

Well, I appreciate that. And it's, it's a I will tell you, there's a scene, and I'll just equate this. There's a scene in the Avengers. They're, all the Avengers have gathered, and they're getting ready to fight the aliens, and they're looking for the Hulk. And so Bruce Banner drives up on this old dilapidated motorcycle, and he gets off and and Captain America goes, hey. You better get angry quick because we need the Hulk. And his response is, here's the secret. I'm always angry.

And I think that for me, that's the constant. It's always right there. Like, it's always so I'm glad that in in context of you and I, you see the flip side of it, like, you see, but it I will tell you, it's, it's an effort, every day, but it's worth it. And and so the last thing I wanna talk about with you, and and you and and I think it's back to research. Right? Maslow. So so Maslow is higher. So everybody knows it. Right? Pyramid.

By the way, Maslow never created it like a pyramid. That was a manage management consultants actually did that because they wanted to sell it, so they needed a formula. But, anyway, he everybody knows the top of that pyramid is currently, everybody thinks it's self actualization.

Right.

Right? Well, Maslow actually came back later in his career and corrected that, but that it didn't stick. Like, nobody paid attention to it. He said the top of the pyramid is actually self transcendence, where we move past ourselves in service to others. And now, I I connect the two because I think it goes back to your efficacy and ego. We wanna pursue self actualization. It isn't that it's wrong. It's just not an end in itself. Yeah.

Like, because that's all about me. Like, I wanna be better. I wanna be the best version of me, which is important as long as you're doing it in service to other people.

Touche.

And I think that that's that fine line we all dance is if I can become the best version of myself so that I can give my gift to other people and make their life better, then then that's a worthy cause. But if I just wanna become the best version of me for my own benefit and by the way, I tell people all the time, I'm like, if you it's a lot of hard work to move up that that ladder. Right? To go from physiological needs and safety needs and esteem needs and belonging needs and and actually work on self actualization because, by the way, back just briefly, I won't sidetrack, but back to the brain, there's risk involved in self actualization. So you're you're fighting your biology the whole time because all of that stuff's risky. Identity is risky. But if you pursue that and you wanna do that work, you're never gonna be motivated enough to do it as long as you need to do it if you're doing it just for yourself. My opinion is if we have if we have flipped that to do it for other people, there's a never ending fountain of motivation and inspiration if we're doing it for other people. If we wanna become if we wanna fight that battle, if we wanna if we wanna slay that dragon, you know, use whatever metaphor you want, but if you wanna do that work and you're doing it in service of others, it's something you can't not do.

Oh, yeah. And to me, that's that's the best thing we can do.

Okay. So absolutely. By the way, I just not just, but they came out with with part two of or I should say the the appended version of Maslow's hierarchy Yeah. Or the book, didn't they, a couple years ago?

Well, Scott Barry I think his name is Barry Scott Barry Kelly wrote a book called Transcend, and and he wrote it all about his study of Maslow and and that. Yeah. It was a it's a fantastic book. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and, I mean, you're you're a treasure trove of information, and I I I just remember that. But Transcendence, that that that is that is high higher purpose, why why, Simon Sinek, why kind of stuff. And that's where you were going with that. So in today's parlance parlance, Simon Sinek, his TED Talk, you know, 33,000,000 views, whatever. But it's it's the the the the the concentric circles.

Right? Why? What is your why? That goes back to the horizon behind the horizon. That that that goes back to I mean, how about, a man's search for meaning? I'm sure you're tracking it. It's it's it's aligned as well. Mhmm. You know, what what is our higher purpose? What is something that we're gonna do beyond ourselves? And now those are the motivating factors to persist, to persevere, to be gritty, to get through those extremely challenging times. I wanna come back to the what what you had said, to be on the right side of ego, leaving the world better than we found it, all those kinds of things. But but please, why greater oh, there it is. It all brings us back to humility in my estimation.

Because if you're doing it for others, you are a servant leader. And all isn't that isn't that isn't that an an an an equal equation? You know, if you're a servant leader, you you have humility. You are humble in your service to others. Yeah. And in your service to others, it is to provide them the tools for change, whether it's the cognitive tools or or just, you know, helping them get out of their own way, say you're better than that. You know, tools for change. Okay. Go do it on your own, and I'm gonna be your guy on the side.

Or wait a second. Let me coach you forward because you're better than that. So if it's triage or if it's, you know, helping somebody be more superlative, it is being on the right side of ego. It is about being humble. It is about going back to the whole in service to others. And now bringing it back to what is important to you, and I have learned a lot about it, and that is ex ex

existentialism. Yep.

You know, the the this this notion or the concept of just human existence, it ties directly, Perry, to our belief in human agency. People having the causative power, people having the belief within themself that they can actually create change. They can be a catalyst for goodness. So to me, those two things marry up, you know, human existence and the power that we have within. The superpower lives within us. But it's our job to find it out and to discover and to use it. And I'm gonna close and give it back to you then, on and and I'm sure people remember The Wizard of Oz. And if you haven't seen it, watch it or watch it.

And if you've seen it once, watch it again. If you have if you've seen it 10 times, watch it the eleventh time. If you and and and you could go out and you can search this and pull it down on on, YouTube. It's the last scene, Perry, where the wizard comes out from behind the curtain, and, Dorothy and, the three her three compatriots, the scarecrow, the tin man, and the lion, really challenge the wizard. You're a fraud. And he challenges them back. And he says to the lion, cowardly lion, you've always had courage within you. You just need to discover it.

And here's a way to discover it, and he gave him a badge. He gave him a badge of courage. Mhmm. And he went to the Tin Man, and he said, you've always had you've always had a brain. I believe that. Right? No. No. The Tin Man was heart.

Heart. Yeah.

You've always had a heart, and you need to discover within you. But here, let me give you a reminder that it lives within you, and he put a clock, a ticking clock around his neck. And then he went to the scarecrow, and he said, you've always had a brain. You just need to discover within you. And by the power vested in me, I'm gonna provide you this this diploma to show you how smart you are, and he gave him a diploma. And so there there in you know, their their their mindset manifested in front of them by these artifacts, these artifacts to prove to them that they had the very things that they were searching for within them. And so we need to stop searching, externally, you know, external locus of control. We need to look in the mirror and say, no.

No. I've got the power. You may need to ride on the beliefs of others, a coach like you, Perry, and ride on your beliefs, in me if I'm failing or if I'm going through a challenging time. But it's all about in conclusion, it's all about beliefs and using the make your bed, metaphor, the the the admiral, McCraven. Yeah. McCraven, the the the commencement speech 02/2016, University of Texas. You can change the world by making your bed every day. Because if you can't do the small things right, how are you gonna do the big things right? So ladies and gentlemen, what is your make the bed moment each day as it relates to changing your beliefs, hacking your mind, going from limiting to liberating? Because once you take that first step, it will change your world.

Back to you.

Well, I think that's a good place to stop. I mean, I I mean, we well, first of all, we could go for another hour, you know, I I think and and maybe we will at some point. Maybe we'll come back and revisit. But, I genuinely appreciate your time, Mark. It's been a great conversation. I always enjoy talking to you. I enjoy I enjoy listening when you present to the group, and I and and I get the benefit. I think I've heard you three, four times.

Yeah.

But the the thing is is every time I hear you, I hear something different. Yeah. Right? And that's the value in all of this because as I internalize this, I internalize some things and then when I hear it again, I'm like, oh, wait a minute. I didn't catch that the first time. And so, I genuinely appreciate the work you've done, the work you continue to do, the work that Pacific Institute does. And so, why don't you share with people if they would like more information or where they can find you, where they can find the Pacific Institute?

Yeah. Thank you so very much. As mentioned, I'm the CEO of Emeritus and and partner at the Pacific Institute. The easiest way to reach out to me is on my website, And it is www.mark, m a r k, pancierra, my last name, p as in Peter, a n c I e r a. I'm assuming you're gonna you're gonna share that .com. Mark pancierra Com. All my information is there. Reach out to me.

You know, I'm a caregiver at heart. And, Perry, I know you know that. But but I am biologically sort of, wired, if you will, to be a caregiver born and bred in funeral service, and I'm just manifesting at a greater level going from bearing the dead to breathing life into leaders around the globe.

Well, Mark, it's been great. I genuinely appreciate your time and your energy and your insight, and I look forward to talking to you again soon.

Always. I appreciate you. Peace.

Alright. See you.