Mark Hiddleson is the Owner of Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc., a nationwide logistics company with industry-leading warehouse storage solutions. It provides clients with innovative products, facility layouts, and designs to optimize their logistics operations.
Mark has several decades of service experience in the warehousing and logistics industry with leadership roles in several professional industry organizations. Using a holistic approach, he also has experience in equipment material handling, operations management, supply chain optimization, professional development, and public speaking. He holds a bachelor’s in economics and a master's degree in holistic health education.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Mark Hiddleson explains why archetypes are important
Why Mark identifies with the “Don Juan” archetype and how he uses it in sales
How Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, relates to archetypes
How to use the “Don Juan” archetype to get favors — and what the phrase "you caught them, you clean them" means
Mark explains why people should know what they want and ask for it
Mark's ecology of values and philanthropic work
In this episode…
Self-awareness is essential and can guide your professional and personal life. It can help you learn more about yourself, understand your actions, and help you become more efficient.
There are hundreds of archetypes, and according to Mark Hiddleson, selecting the ones you most identify or relate with can be very beneficial. Mark identifies with the “Clown” and “Don Juan” archetypes and leverages their mission and vision to manage his business and personal life.
In this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, host Mark Hiddleson is interviewed by Dr. Jeremy Weisz, Co-founder of Rise25, about the significance of archetypes. Mark explains why he identifies with the “Don Juan” archetype, how he uses it in sales conversations, and discusses his ecology of values.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
Sponsor for this episode...
This episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions Inc.
Listen...
I have been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades. I know I don’t look that old, but it's true..
We provide industry-leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide.
So basically if you have a warehouse that needs Rack, Shelving, Carts, Conveyors or Mezzanines we help with....design engineering, installations, inspections, and repairs to help clients optimize their logistics operations.
Sometimes people don’t even realize that we can actually help with permit acquisition services.
We take a look holistically at your entire business supply chain ecosystem to develop the resources for continually improving your operation.
To learn more, visit specialracks.com or give us a call at (707) 732-3892. One of the best ways to learn more about our products and services is to follow us on instagram. And there’s a link on our website to do that.
I will even give you my personal email address for podcast listeners so email me at markhiddleson@aol.com if you’re ready to take your warehouse storage and retrieval systems to the next level.
Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:01
Welcome to The Tao of Pizza where we feature top logistics leaders, entrepreneurs, and supply chain innovators and share their inspiring stories with a holistic twist.
Mark Hiddleson 0:19
Mark Hiddleson here hosts of The Tao of Pizza Podcast where I talk with top industry innovators in the warehousing, logistics, and supply chain business with a holistic twist. Past episodes you might want to check out is Shawn Phillips, Best Selling Author of Zen Strength for Life. And also the Michael Thomas of Grocery Outlet. I had a great conversation with Michael and Shawn. I have Dr. Jeremy Weisz here from Rise25, who's done thousands of interviews with successful entrepreneurs and CEOs. And we've flipped the script, and he's going to interview me.
Jeremy Weisz 0:42
Mark, I'm excited. Well, one, your conversations always entertaining, but I'm too, you know, you, you have this philosophical side of you. And that I didn't realize you had in the beginning. And we're going to talk about archetypes and why they're important to you and your business and knowing them and how it helps you and other people. Before we dig into that will you know this episode is brought to you by specialized storage solutions. And you'll listen, I know I know, you've been in the logistics and storage industry for several decades now. And you provide some of the industry leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So basically, if you have a warehouse that needs rack, shelving, carts, conveyors, many mezzanine, you know, you help with the design, engineering, installation, inspection, repairs, everything that needs to be done even permits. So, sometimes people don't even realize that now you take an entire holistic approach to the business kind of like you do with life, really. So if you want your supply chain ecosystem looked at Marc as your person, so go to special tracks.com and give him a call 707-732-3892 To learn more, and email him He even said, you know, Jeremy, I'm fine. I'll give out my personal email, Mark hilson@aol.com If you're ready to take your warehouse storage and systems to the next level. So are Why are archetypes important for someone and their business?
Mark Hiddleson 2:18
So in business? Well, first, I think it's important. It's one area, you know, self awareness is something that is really going to make you you know, the more you know about yourself and patterns that you have, the more effective you're going to be. And archetypes are the first exposure I had to him was was reading a book by Joseph Campbell or Joe Campbell. He wrote that hero 1000 journeys are in he goes into but Carl Jung studied psychology and, and I have a master's degree in holistic health education. So I really got into, you know, how can you connect with Jung called the collective unconscious or even your own, because they say, you know, 90% of your consciousness is either you're not even aware of it, it's you're just doing things. And so sometimes you get on autopilot, and it's fantastic, you're in the Zen zone, and things are rocking. And then there's also patterns, you know, all those archetypes, they're neutral, but they also have a pathological side, we can go too far in any direction. For me, I created a project during my master's degree where I created a project through Caroline Myss' work on archetypes in the book, Sacred Contracts. And it was just really helpful to, you know, there's hundreds of archetypes and going through and selecting the ones that I most identify with, just as a process gives me, it gives me access to two ways I could be, you know, I can sense a pattern coming up. And, you know, if it's pathological, I could choose not to go there. And the thing is, if you're not aware that those things are going on, it doesn't even give you the choice of doing it. And I'm not saying that I never do because it's easy to get on a roll. And I think, one last time and I wanted to bring this up on the thank you last time, we had a conversation like this, you asked me before, he said, Hey, how's everything going? As if and honestly, I'm a little off today. And I like to do that. You know, it's something I learned if I will just share with somebody and not even really asking for help. Just go look at you know, something happened. It was somebody close to me, it was kind of a close call, and I'm off and you said hold on one second. Here's uh, only to watch this this two minute video and I share with you some of the details. I'm not going to share it publicly, but I within you know, 30 seconds. I'm laughing and what you sent me was right, it was a surgical right to the heart of what I was talking about. And I was able to just laugh and kind of let it go. And the archetype we were talking about that day was the clown and how the clown can be you know, it's a painkiller. It's Laughter is the best medicine. And, and I was just thinking about afterwards, I was so grateful that that was a perfect example. And, and I think you're a great coach, and you just saw that was a two minute, you know, just two minute intervention. And that was kind of it was it was like refreshing the page, you know, start over. So that's, that's one of the best examples I can think of where you use an archetype or you use laughter. And, and you know, I'm kind of a clown. So that's going to work on.
Jeremy Weisz 5:34
So the funny thing is when you say that, like, I didn't realize I was doing that, specifically, but but now that, you know, like, you were saying, if you know it, you can actually consciously do it and do it better. Because you know, that archetype and maybe you sense someone else, that's a personality, so they'll resonate with certain things better than others?
Mark Hiddleson 5:55
Absolutely, absolutely. And so you see it in yourself, and then you can see it coming up in others. And actually, it gives you more patience. I mean, one of the things that I've had to develop personally, is I'm not very patient. And that's, that's great for some things if you're really trying to push and drive and get things done. But I'll tell you, patients, I know you're John Wooden guy, and he's got a pyramid and the sides of the pyramid, it's faith on one side, and patients on the other, and you can't get the results you want. And right now, so seeing that and other it gives me more patients with other people like oh, this, you know, they're kind of going down the road motors, and I could wait for him to come back.
Jeremy Weisz 6:38
Yeah, I have opposing personality quotes in my mind on a daily basis. We have, you know, Tommy Boy. And then we have John Wooden, very different, very different
Mark Hiddleson 6:49
archetypes, right. Yeah. Yeah, the profane and the profound.
Jeremy Weisz 6:55
So we talked about the clown last time. So I want to dig into another one, which is kind of, you know, you talk about the integral mission and vision of Don Juan,
Mark Hiddleson 7:04
right. So the, I use the work that I did with the archetypes in my book. And that was sort of a scientific way that I did it because I kept track of it. And I wanted to, you know, the chapters are, in order of a certain way, because each chapter kind of includes the next chapter. And, but with the archetypes, I wanted to include it because it's another lens. And when the whole book is about the lens, we see the world or worldview, and archetype is just a great way that everybody has to sort of access that paradigm on paradigms of paradigms and principles of peak performance. And so I did it very scientifically, I wrote all the archetypes down on a piece of paper, and I put them in a hat, and I kind of drew them out. And the one that Don Juan, it's funny I did, it seems really random. But then when I look at it, that Don Juan is is great for for revision, because Don Juan is the seducer, and I've had a lot of sales training. And I think it's part of every sales training that you're really trying to win people over. And I chose it because of the positive aspects. And I'll talk a little bit about the shadow later. But the dawn long is really about being vulnerable enough to ask for relationship and be willing to put yourself out there, and, and charm and disarm and really be you know, only deepest, intimate relationships. And a lot of the times people think of Don Juan just in the kind of the sexual sense of, of, you know, winning people's hearts, but I think it's a lot in business. You know, if you want new clients, then you've got to, you've got to make yourself attractive to the other. And I love looking at the mission and vision through the lens of Don Juan, because it's it's kind of going after, you know, going after what you want in life, you know, life is simple, right? You just have to figure out what you want, and then an ask for it. And so I think a Donilon is a great way to look at it.
Jeremy Weisz 9:22
Did you think of that when you're going into kind of a sales conversation or something like that? How do you incorporate that?
Mark Hiddleson 9:31
So it's, there's a few different ways. Step two, in in my cells is always been made friends. So you know, it's finding out what other people are passionate about. And I think when you get into the shadow aspects of Don Juan, is that if you're if you're misleading about what you're interested in, just to win somebody over and you're not being authentic, then that's when you're getting the pathology of the Dongwon. But for me, I'm looking for common ground out, you know, what things do we have in common and it always, you know, in the end, it's really will come down to we have the solution to a problem they're trying to solve. But I'll find out about, you know, other jobs people have, have worked in, you know what other industries that they've been in try to tray because I've done business in a lot of other industries. So look for parallels. Another question that I love to ask and I think people don't ask it enough is how do you hear about me? Because I learned that very young is working in car dealerships in Sacramento is, I used to work for a company called swift Dodge, and they haven't been in business since the early 90s. But there were people there that they would come in, you'd ask him How'd you hear about us? Like, uh, well, we bought our last 10 cars here, man. Like, we only come here and this is swift, we're part of the Swift family. It's like, if you hadn't asked them that in the beginning, then then you've got a lot of work to do. It's already done just kind of by asking that question. And I think that's a Don Juan question. Like, how did you hear about me? Or why
Jeremy Weisz 11:03
there's different use, you have a different starting point. Then if they go, I was walking by and I just wanted to browse?
Mark Hiddleson 11:11
Yeah. Right. Or they might say my wife told me to buy a new car today, or I can come home. It's the same thing, but in so it's, it's, you know, it's a great way it's kind of an icebreaker. And then it's, it's a it's not, you know, so manipulative, but I was like, How'd you hear about us is a great, you know, we read the paper. And then also companies want to know, you know, I want to know, in our business, because 90% of our business comes from referrals. And so for me, I always ask that question, because if I get a referral, I'll call that person right away. And I'll say, Hey, Tom, Mike just called he's asked me for the thing, I set an appointment for nine. And I'll always follow up and let that person I want to know who to thank if it's a referral, and most of the time with us, and it's a referral.
Jeremy Weisz 11:57
There's also, how does the, like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey's book relate to this?
Mark Hiddleson 12:05
So so that's one of my favorite all time books. And while I can, I can recite the habits backwards and forwards, it's all on my website. But his for Stephen Covey his mission. I mean, they're not exactly one for one, but but how the two is begin with the end in mind. And it's really, it's looking at your life, his exercise, it's funny, it seems kind of morbid, but it but it's a great exercise. But at the end of your life, you know, what do you want that conversation at your memorial to be like? And so mission and vision is really about deciding on your your true dreams and goals, and going after it. And one of the things I remember from his book about mission and vision is that you don't want to climb the ladder of success in life and find out at the end that it was leaning up against the wrong wall.
Jeremy Weisz 12:52
You know, there is a manipulation, like you said, the Danwon there's kind of that paradox, right? Manipulation influence using for good or evil. And I think you also like to kind of talk about Ben Franklin. And as far as this goes to,
Mark Hiddleson 13:08
well, yeah, I read. So I love that phrase. I'm a huge Ben Franklin fan, I almost named my daughter, Ben Franklin, because she said she was going to be a boy. And I love that name so much. And I thought Ben Franklin Hilson was going to be a good name. But he has a, there was something I've done this I've used this concept to build my network is, is he had a saying, I don't know exactly how it goes, I'm paraphrasing. I'm probably butchering it. But asking somebody a favor is one of the best ways to earn their trust and confidence is if you ask somebody for a favor, and I read this article on Medium, and it was like three things that are manipulative. And this was one of the things and the nice thing about medium is kind of amateur writers. It's not you can just submit anything. So anything you disagree with, you can just say all they're amateurs, you know, but, but if you agree with them, you can well, I read this article on Medium, so it must be true. When I was thinking about it. And you know, it's, it's totally manipulative, if you're doing it for the wrong reasons. And, you know, in my business, one of the things that I love to look for the people who are gifted in an industry and if I know there's somebody who's way better at something, or can give me an answer, or even if I'm just searching for answers, and I have no clue, you know, they're all suitable, who's the three or four people who might be able to do me a favor, in this case, and I'll just call them out of the blue. And it's a great way people are there. They're flattered. And it's a great way to get in contact one time. One time we had a forklift was broken down. We're trying a little this truck. We had limited number of times, like 330 In the afternoon, and I call this client who was around the corner. I said, Man, we've got this order. We're trying to live in this truck. We gotta get out. It was 330 in the afternoon, would you be willing to let me you know, drive your forklift down the street and load this truck? And he's like, Well, where are you? And so I told them where I was, and I was kind of in the vicinity, but these big warehouses that go, you know, acres and acres and he goes, Man, he goes, I would do it, he goes, but I'd have to drive my forklift on like a main busy street, because so I'm not going to be able to do that he goes, but have you tried pouring some water is what it sounds like it was it sounds like the engine, you know, when it gets close to blowing up, the car will heat up and the LPG won't go through. So if you if you dump a little cold water on it, you might be able to get that forklift enough to run, which worked. And he said, Oh, hey, and by the way, I forgot to tell you, we got bought out, and we're moving into a new facility in West Sacramento, and we need racking shelving, engineering. Everything else, I was really glad I asked that guy for a favor. I was, you know, I was in a bind. And the rest is kind of history. And there's tons of and the other thing is I'm really flattered people call me for some of the most off the wall stuff, thinking why are you even asking me about this, but but I'm flattered. And I usually try to come up with something it's like, well, if they thought I might new there, at least maybe I'll know somebody. But it is. It is charming people it does work, you know, when you've asked me a favor. And you know, if you're always just doing that, and you're always manipulative, and I think that's going to come out, you know, and I think
Jeremy Weisz 16:29
I mean, the point is like, comes from a genuine place. And that's kind of the foundation of it. You start talking about you caught them, you clean them.
Mark Hiddleson 16:41
Yes,
Jeremy Weisz 16:42
What happens there?
Mark Hiddleson 16:43
Well, here's another thing with with the Don Juan archetype. And I'm spending enough time to know do you have a lot of sales training because I know the right things to say how to overcome objections. And you can really, you know, one of my things in businesses that I really want to be doing business with people I love doing business with, and and there's red flags, and then you can overcome those red flags with salesmanship and talking to people. And then pretty soon, you've got this client that it didn't line up in the first place. And the most recent one was kind of a, it was a little bit of a nightmare. But it started out as a referral from a great client. And this customer kept asking me to do things asked me there was a few. You know, one of the things and I never asked this question, but I tried to find out, are they working with anybody else? And I never asked that question up front. Because if they aren't, they'll think well, maybe I shouldn't be working. But I don't want to suggest it. And I said, you know, I asked what this is the first red flag. So Well, who else? You know, you're getting three proposals, who are the other two proposals? And it was really kind of cagey. He goes, Well, I don't want to give you that information. And I already spent probably, you know, five or six hours helping them with their design, what forklifts to buy, what elevations what racking. So I'd felt like I'd earned the right to ask that question. And I'm not saying I'm right. But I just want to deal with people who kind of get that value of I've invested five or six hours in this project that and so it didn't tell me what was funny, as I asked them a few more questions with two I go, Okay, you're either dealing with crown and Raymond because yeah, it's because they kind of know my competition is part of my part of my process is to say, you know, what, if it's somebody if they're in a different geography, and it's somebody, I think can do a better job, and they're already working with them. And they've done drawings, and I'll just say, Look, they've already done the work, they've earned your business, you know, if you want me to help you coach you along the way, I'll do it. But you're already in good hands. And I rarely say that. But I will. I mean, if I know they're working with somebody who's who's already done all the work, I don't want to be the guy that comes in at the last minute, you know, with a lower price or something, and steals a deal. So these red flags kept adding up. And then I'm thinking, Man, I gotta call my buddy Tom, and say, I'm not quoting this nice project. But, you know, this guy is putting me through, you know, all of this. You know, just making me jump through a lot of hoops that we really shouldn't have to jump through that if we're going to work on this project. And I don't, you know, I didn't do that. And, and then I just ended up wasting probably another 2030 hours of my time. And it just wasn't productive. It was something that was probably, you know, I'm actually glad that I didn't push too far and actually get the order, because then that would have been even worse, but it did invest quite a bit of time playing this Don Juan, I can win them over. I can make this happen thing. And we're just the criteria string wasn't long enough for how we really want to do business.
Jeremy Weisz 19:44
Yeah. Sometimes I guess you just have to go with your gut. Sometimes. You also talked about how kind of life is simple. So you decide what you want, and you have to ask for it.
Mark Hiddleson 19:56
Yeah, I heard that. And it's funny how Most of the things of what I wanted out of life changed between the time I was like 25. And, and, you know, really 20, ABC, 3025 and 30. And what I realized by looking at the people, you know, people around me, and even some people who would pass away unexpectedly, but you know, no matter how much money or cars or houses or boats or you know, power you have, you have to ask yourself, you know, are you living up to your values, and, you know, you don't have to take very long and look around and that people are, are suffering all around, you know, people suffer from all kinds of things, you know, is this deal gonna go through is she gonna stay with me and my good enough, and moments of suffering turns into years of suffering. And I think, you know, limiting kind of looking around me. And, you know, maybe it's a lost relationship. But some people get burned by a partner. And really, everybody's entitled to that, that, you know, their fair share of suffering, and even people could get really stuck. So, you know, I really wanted to focus on things, you know, that took me It's funny, I probably knew this when I was 18. But until I was 30, to realize that in my life, that really what was most important to me, was my faith, my health, my family, and then all the economic stuff came after that. And it was funny, because I had some was like, Well, why should your health come before your family. And it's really nice, because if you're not healthy, you're not going to be able to serve your family. And it's, it was kind of a tough distinction. So, you know, my faith was really centered around, you know, my making the world a better place for the people around me, or the things I'm doing, whether it's my business, of volunteer and a ton of time, in coaching, but in my, you know, I needed to have enough economic success to do those things. So, you know, I wanted to have enough money to have, you know, to take care of my family to have a nice house, I wanted to travel, and I really found pretty quickly is that you get up to a certain point, if you keep going for more stuff, that's an endless pit, and you're always gonna want a nicer car, you're always gonna want a bigger house. And it was funny, I took a one of my classes they were in, it was called cancer and politics, which is kind of off the subject. But the teacher said, you know, with wealth, because it somewhere you have to draw the line, you know, where do you draw the line where she drew the line was having a private helicopter was enough. Okay, okay, if that's what we're going to put, you know, I think that's a Do you think it's an important I saw a, I was only able to watch, like, five or six minutes of it, but it was a Lewis Howes interview on money, it was a guy talking about money and success. So the first thing you have to decide with, with economics or money is, is how much do you need? And then what do you need, and go from there? Because if you just say, oh, I want more and more and more and more and more and more. It's an endless trap. And so for me, in order to fulfill that Stephen Covey principle, and and have my ladder up against the right, wall, you know, I had to do that. I mean, the My favorite story that I love to tell about this is I read the book Think and Grow Rich when I was about 18 years old. And I thought that it's that in there, you know, this isn't just for creating money, there is a spot in there. It's a really small part. It's like this is not just about trading. This is not just about trading wealth. This is about creating a life you'd love. You could do the things you want to do. And what it reminded me back then, is that the wealthiest man I ever knew, was the clerk at lumberjack. It's a it's a funny story because he had enough food in his refrigerator always beat anyone who came in the door, including ice cream for dessert, and it was always proud Always had ice cream, and then his younger days, and the company sponsored basketball, baseball, football teams built churches in his spare time. He always threw lavish holiday parties. And he always used to say, you know, I sleep well. And we always laughed our butts off. But the thing that impressed me most is that he had his shirts ironed by the my cousins. And I wanted to get in on that game. And I had to wait. I was like 12 or 13. And it's one of the fondest memories I have with this guy was my grandfather. And he had owned a business in his younger years, but he wanted to have you know, the time to spend with his family and he just needed him out. You know, he knew what he needed. And one time I was working and was still working at a car dealership and I used to go to my grandparents for lunch. I always let my whole career as long as they were live. I always went to my grandparents at least one On some mom's at that time, it was like once a week for tuna sandwich or something and my my boss said, man, he goes, it must be really nice to come from a wealthy family. Like we're not, we're wealthy. You know, my mom's a teacher. We're on a single income. This is it. This isn't well, you know, my my grandpa's, my my grandmother's works as a teller at a bank. My grandpa was a works lumberjack. Which lumberjack is like Home Depot. Lumberjack was like the precursor was Payless cash ways. They had a few stores, it was a lot like a Home Depot or Lowe's. And like, man, we're not wealthy in my boss goes, no, he goes, if you can go to your grandparents every week, and they can serve you lunch. That's wealth. And I was like, wow. Mind blown. So I always really, you know, thinking my pops, as you know, without a doubt, the wealthiest person I'm sorry, the wealthiest person that I've ever known. And so my vision is similar to that, you know, my family, my spiritual development, health, a family of three most important things to me, don't want to have enough money to be financially independent travel, wear nice clothes, have a nice car live in nice house. But I want to lead the way with irrational generosity to my community. And the thing is, is the faith Health and Family it comes before the economics part. And I'll add one last thing, because what I've found, and I can never prove this is true. I feel like it's true 100% by heart, but those extra things I've done in the community. The you know, the volunteering would never say no, somebody asked for donation. You know, we're always, you know, we're trying to look for we've raised money, we've held fundraisers, we've coached I've coached over 33 seasons of amateur sports, it's added to my fight to the economics of it. Because people have always respected that, you know, if I tell somebody, Hey, look, I have to leave early at 230 because I get to coach a basketball game at 330. Like, oh, hey, wow, man. That's great, Lord, you know, and then the ones that don't, you know, I did have somebody told me Oh, you don't want more life is all about this, gave me some speech. And I'm like, No, life is about me coaching my kids life is about me being on every single field trip. And then if it means we can do business, I'm sorry. But But these things come first. And I think it's actually it's helped me because, you know, people have respected that. And they know, I'm willing to work till midnight the next day, if I have to, to get it done. So, yeah.
Jeremy Weisz 27:38
I like how that person really reframed your thought of what wealth is at that point, because you were thinking it's one thing, and then, and you were thinking he was thinking the same thing as you, but he was not. Yeah. And that was huge. Um, you know, I want to just kind of rapid fire because I know you also think about any college you have values. So I just kind of rapid fire through what that means and some of that, okay,
Mark Hiddleson 28:05
so I created an ecology of values for myself. And the people that I'm closest with, I haven't it's not on my website or anything, I'm thinking about putting it on The Tao of Pizza website. And it's just something I created it for kind of a dashboard for me to say, am I living these values? And I even, you know, I want to not just live these values, but I want to be these values where somebody asked the question that go, yeah, that was him. And, and so I created this list. And the first one is the opportunities we face are big. So we dream big. We'll never insult the human capacity with small thinking and playing it safe with our gifts. The word opportunities, he could substitute problems, I was in a meeting with someone and I said this, I know that, oh, man, this is a problem. He said, No, it's a challenge. I said, No, it's an opportunity. And so when we face some, some great opportunities when our clients have great opportunities, and I think, you know, whoever I was, at that time in my life, probably five years ago, where I thought I can just coast home from here, you know, have enough going on, I can just really pull back not to as much not start a podcast, just goes just goes home. But that wouldn't that would insult the human capacity. And then how can I you know, at the end of my life look and go there were still more suffering, you know, there was there is always gonna be suffering. And so, you know, the opportunities are big, so I need to dream big and not play it safe. You know. The second one is a local community is a big deal to us. We'll invest our lives to build a local community and I kind of talked a little bit about that already. The other thing is we will be a place for people to connect and experience greatness. And I think lives flourish when they're inspired by something greater than self. And I think greatness is a funny word. It might make people cry. Engine and I don't want to, you know, try to say like, I'm angry. But what I found is, when you allow other people to experience, you know, that everybody has greatness inside of them. And when you're a place, I mean, I want to be a place where I'm honoring when people show up and greatness and acknowledging, being part of that is asking for favors. If you know somebody's great, you can be in a place where that greatness comes through. And the other thing is, we'll find our significant through the significance through relationships, we all serve our communities, well through meaningful connections, you know, for me, really, that's what this whole podcast project for me of doing is all about, is connecting the community. I mean, we were already connecting, but this is a, this is another place for us to connect, and I'm including, you know, everybody, I can think of that I want to be a part of this project, even suppliers competitors, you know, and we've even had a conversation on the screen is like, Is this is this gonna be a good idea to have competitors on my podcast, and I think it's one of those rubber meets the road thing, if that's on my values, and that's on my list, I'm going to trust that. And that, you know, there's an abundance, there's enough to go around for everybody, the partners we're working with, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna shout their stories from my podcast, because they've helped me they've been a huge part. And relationships, I mean, the relation that couldn't mean this, there's projects, this project is happening, you know, because of our relationship. Really, I mean, if you think about it, the possibility, here's a worldview, the possibility of me having a podcast didn't exist, and it wouldn't exist. Unless you and I already had a relationship, we had some success stories already. We've spent time together, you've spent time with my clients, you know, the executive dinner in Chicago. And so we've built a relationship. And then that's where, you know, that's where we can find significance. The next one, I love it's, this is where the cloud comes back into, but we love our planet, and we'll take responsibility for it. Actions speak louder than words, and driving a Prius doesn't count, hashtag our planet. So I had to put the user of a Prius, the Jeremy This is my,
Jeremy Weisz 32:27
If I did, I still wouldn't be offended.
Mark Hiddleson 32:31
I was always it seems to me like it's I ride my bicycle a lot. And it's one of my most audacious goals that I had 17 years ago is when I started my company is I want to be able to, I was driving about 40 to 50,000 miles a year. And I wanted to cut that at least in half. And one of my goals was I want to be able to walk to work or ride my bike to work. And I had read a study that if people rode their bike or walked on every trip less than three miles, they would cut their ecological I forget what it was enough to power a city for a month or so there's this huge impact if you just take those, those smaller steps. And I think I could have put Tesla in there. But I said, I said good things about Elon Musk on another on another podcast. But uh, I just want, I think the thing about the Prius is that driving a car, you're still driving a car, one of my favorite cartoons, it shows a Prius plugged in to a coal plant. It's like, you're still driving the car. So really changing the perspectives, making the you know, the kind of changes that we really want to make a big impact on the environment is going to be looking at ways of doing things other than driving like telecommuting or riding your bike or anything like that. And so I don't know why this is number six, or seven. But our rule number one is enjoy the journey. We laugh hard to laugh loud, and we laughed off. And so that kind of speaks to the clown, the clown archetype as well. And, you know, there's times when we get so serious, and it's one of those things, it's an aha moment. It's like, wait a minute, it's not that serious. Let's take a step back. Let's ask Jeremy for some coaching to video and get the perspective back on track. You know, because the journey there's a lot of ways of saying this, you know, Cervantes is the author of Don Quixote, which Don Quixote is one of my all time favorite books is that the journey is better than the end. So I mean, I think you know, if you look at what the what the end of a life really is there that's obviously true, right? And then this last view isn't you want me to go through the last three Jeremy or if if he had enough, he'd be rolling it rolling. The will always bring our best. I love this quote by Aristotle, what we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. I spent, you know, probably from the time I was 19 to 29 thinking at some point I was going to arrive and the That is a fallacy. We are what we repeatedly do. And I love the concepts of habit. There's a book called The Power of Habit I never got all the way through. Because I think it's Charles Charles Duhigg. Yep. Yeah. In the beginning, it talks about the sky has part of his brain cut out. And he's using that as an examples for habits. And I was like, Wow, man, I've learned a lot about habits without frontal lobe bottom me. So, but I think, you know, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is one of my favorite books. And I think that there's another saying that I've had for 20 plus years is that practice doesn't make perfect practice makes permanent. So if you're practicing the wrong thing over and over and over precision, you're going to be doing the wrong thing over and over. So excellence is kind of it's the same way you have to practice. Practice. I don't
Jeremy Weisz 35:57
know if John Wooden said, practice doesn't make perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect or something, something of that sort. Yeah. And he would be, I don't know if he said it, but someone, someone, I've heard it somewhere. And I
Mark Hiddleson 36:11
could see what I love about John Wooden and I have a quote, here for him about, you know, really success is is the peace of mind self satisfaction that comes from knowing you did your best. And whether in I saw a video with him where he said, you know, we had some games where we want on the scoreboard, but I feel like we lost. And we had some games with this is another emotional I don't get so emotional about these things. But it's true. We have some games, we didn't win on the scoreboard, but we walked away winners, you know, because we knew and I've had some of those experience. And it's so true that you know, success and everything. It's not so much about winning. It's about the journey. It's about the process. It's about did you leave it all out there? You know, on the court or on the field? The last couple years, we're lifelong learners. Always reading. I got about five years ago, six years, I quit reading books. I was always reading like two books a month, three books a month, my wife and I were always reading three books. Why don't you just pick one blog, one, for certain, you know, or I rarely read nonfiction. But there were some novels I want to read. I've read Catcher in the Rye and Kurt Vonnegut's novels, because they have a message. And I quit reading because it was taking me forever. And I couldn't figure it out. But I can see what's reading. I'm like, I just I used to read a book in four hours now, you know, send you for 20 minutes, I've only read three pages. So I quit reading for a while. It's actually a good thing kind of the same time I started listening to podcasts instead. But I got, I was actually we were eating. And we're the restaurant in Wiley and Hawaii. And I was with my best friend. And we're reading the menu. I've got the menu out like this. And I'm trying to read it he goes here, he goes, put these on, I go, no go You look like a knucklehead with those off because the reading glasses are real little he goes, You look like a knucklehead because I said okay. And it was, again, it was one of those things, I kind of had a change of perspective change. When I put them on, I was like, wow, I can see this. And even you know, it's the lighting in a restaurant, sometimes the lighting is bad. And so started, you know, now I have I had bought readers, and then I kept losing them and my wife because now it's not that kind of thing. She goes, you just keep buying them every time he goes somewhere. If they have readers on sale, you just bought him and he put him somewhere, and you have them. And that was like opening up the world. And he started reading reading books again. So the last one is to choose a look for the bigger picture taking action locally. And globally. I think I've already said enough about that. And there's something I'm working on too and I haven't figured out what but there's gonna be a big gift for us like I'm really looking for that next. I've always been involved in like a nonprofit or something and I don't want to be I don't want to throw any fundraisers or or anything like that. But I do want to make a significant I want to find something in either having to do with we're involved in the Wounded Warrior Project is the something we do called cycle for side that we sponsor every year with our company. And it's also wounded warriors. So it's helping them back to the glasses and and wounded warrior. But we want to make and I have to figure it out. But I want to make a serious and I mean serious like seven figure contribution to to a cause one of those causes and I'm narrowing it down, but it's gonna be you know, something big. The homeboy, you did a podcast on the homeboy it was called the homeboy network.
Jeremy Weisz 39:57
Yeah, it was homeboy. Maybe Homeboy Industries.
Mark Hiddleson 40:01
Yeah, I listened to that podcast years because my nickname is homeboy. Because my kids, I had him on speakerphone in the car one time, and I was talking to one of my installers and he said, Hey, homeboy. He called me Look, homeboy used to give me this information in the, so they call me humbly after that. So I love that, but that is helping people transition from prison into
Jeremy Weisz 40:28
society, right? Oh, yeah. Like, yes, Homeboy Industries. It's one of the largest gang rehabilitation reentry programs in the world. But yeah, some of them, they've come out of prison, and they give them jobs and leadership and, you know, treat them like normal human beings like they should. And instead of them not coming out, and people look at their past record, and they're not able to get jobs. And you know, it's hard, right, man. Yeah. And taking them out of their previous environments, so they don't fall back into their old old habits and old ways, essentially.
Mark Hiddleson 41:05
Yeah. So I want to get involved in something like that. And like I said, we're right now, you know, we're sending $1,000 Here, you know, to sponsor a table or whatever, but I really want to get serious. And those because I think those are the opportunities and, and I heard it at church, they were doing something like that. And somebody said, Well, shouldn't the government be doing that? Are you kidding? Like, this is private industry. This is Faith based work. Like this is what we're here for. I mean, I'm sure the government is doing stuff. But I think there's enough talent out there. I mean, the homeboy want to it's a great example. I mean, that's somebody that was running a multimillion dollar corporation.
Jeremy Weisz 41:41
Yeah. Tom Vasko. Was, was president of a billion dollar company. And he was then you went kind of was on the board and just helping out at Homeboy Industries. And they brought him on and convinced him to be CEO and taking that and treating it like a business and not just like a nonprofit. So that's sustainable. And they can, he can help even more people.
Mark Hiddleson 42:09
Yeah, so that's the type of project man that warm. I listened to that. I mean, I recommend anybody listen to that. And it's just a great way. And that's what I mean by making a contribution locally, globally, is projects like that. And taking big action.
Jeremy Weisz 42:23
Mark, this has been awesome. And I want to just encourage people to check out more episodes of the podcast and future episodes of the podcast and check out your website as well. And I'm looking forward to the next one. So thank you so much.
Mark Hiddleson 42:40
Yeah, thank you, Jeremy. This is awesome.
Outro 42:41
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