Mak: 0:00

I don't know where I would have gone or what I would have done.

Valerie: 0:02

You just didn't know what to do with yourself. I just didn't because I was so heartbroken.

Mak: 0:06

It's one thing to fail. It's another thing to fail and everybody on the news is talking about it Right For days Like this was not a one story and it's over. They were like on the hunt.

Mak: 0:33

So this is going to be like a part two, because we made a promise in the last one and then didn't deliver, which is literally one of the worst things you can do, especially when you're broadcasting or doing a podcast.

Valerie: 0:43

So it was a bait and switch.

Mak: 0:45

It was. But it was a bait and switch on us too, because we had this loose plan for what we were going to do and then we got off on tangents. I think helpful tangents.

Mak: 0:57

I think, so, but then we didn't get to the meat and potatoes because we also didn't want to make a two and a half hour episode. Right, hi, I'm Mac, I'm Valerie. To the meat and potatoes, because we also didn't want to make a two and a half hour episode. Right, hi, I'm mac, I'm valerie, and this is the unbound creative podcast. We're so excited to have you here again. Episode number seven, sort of a part two on, uh, the fear of failure I feel like we could just make the whole podcast about failure.

Mak: 1:24

Honestly. Well, it is like a huge topic.

Valerie: 1:27

Well, because it comes with the territory. It's sort of like okay, you want to be an unbound creative, you want to play outside the lines, you want to get out of the box, you want to experience the fullness and the bigness and the wholeness of your being and what you're capable of, and that just soul electrifying way of being. It's gonna come with the territory.

Valerie: 1:55

I hate to break it to everybody, but it's true there's no way for you to be unbound and do something differently and try things without the up and down and the fall and the get back up.

Mak: 2:08

The most successful people I know my, my close friends, who are doing amazing things or have done amazing things at big exits and things like that they they have just the best stories about failure. And this is something that is like unique, because when you're in the, you know. You know when you go on like, let's say, you go on a trip and everything goes wrong, the plane is late or delayed and you end up in the in the airport for 12 hours and then you get to where you're going and the hotel room is all wrong and then they lose your luggage and just everything is failing. In that moment, man, what are you? You're frustrated, you're angry, you're like I hate this. Three years later, you tell that story to your friends over dinner and everybody's laughing, including you. It actually becomes funny and entertaining and enjoyable.

Mak: 2:59

That's like this weird thing about humans that we have we're able to take these situations in our lives that were at one time bad and in the moment felt awful, but later look back on them with a light heart and it actually makes us really unique, is something cool about who. We are Part of our story and we always laugh about those things. Always. We all have stories. We're in the moment it was bad and later on we always laugh about those things. Always, we all have stories where in the moment it was bad and later on we laugh about it.

Mak: 3:28

That is literally how I, like, have begun to look at my failures. It's something that, like the story I'm going to share with you today, definitely was not something I was laughing about at the time, but now, looking back on it, I'm able to have a light heart about it and when I tell the story to people for the first time and I don't really tell the story a whole lot, so you have to be really close to me to get the story. So this is like a little nerve-racking for me today, but it's always like everyone's just it's. It is a little bit of a light-hearted retelling. So that's something that to keep in mind If you're afraid to move forward. Remember that most of the time we look back on these things later with some distance, with some time, and we're able to to actually see the good that came out of it and enjoy telling the story.

Valerie: 4:22

Right, even if it's not a ha ha ha. Can you believe that? Because they're deeply painful things. Nobody wants to feel like they look like an idiot or be embarrassed or lose money or these things that happen.

Valerie: 4:35

But like you said, I think with the distance you cannot help but see, good, that came out of every situation, even if just at a level like maybe it caused a pivot to happen, maybe it caused an awakening. That's a really powerful thing, because sometimes we just go about our lives and it's just sort of mundane and we're like this low-key, unhappy but nothing's really happening. But then if you experience something like that, it sort of shakes things up and it's like all right, I gotta move, I gotta try something else, I gotta do something else, but it's still motion. Failing is is a gift because it says you're in motion, you're changing, you're developing, you're growing. And to me that is so much better than the stagnant, stuck, soul-sucking, lost feeling Just to be okay, I tried this, I'm in motion, this didn't go as I expected, but what in life does really?

Valerie: 5:50

You know we make our plans just in general, and how often they don't go. Like you said, the trip. The trip doesn't go as planned or things get canceled or it's just something of life that we can have a perception of control. But really it's in the surrender and knowing that your path is unfolding and we're going to respond to what comes to us and hold ourselves in those moments with grace and with gentleness when we're going through something really hard and what we really want to do in this episode. Like I said, this is going to just be a topic. I feel like that just comes up again and again and again because, as we said last time, we could literally make a whole podcast on failing and tell one of our own stories we have many every single time.

Valerie: 6:39

But what we want to do in that, the reason we want to do that, is because it needs to be talked about and, like we said last time, and like you said, mac, you don't really get this story because who's going to be like, hey, nice to meet you, can I tell you about my most epic failure that I ever had? Or hey, let me open instagram. I feel like telling everybody about my most embarrassing moment.

Mak: 7:03

Right, I'm gonna dump on everybody today.

Valerie: 7:05

Nobody's gonna do that, and for that reason, I think that we have this false perception that everybody is doing amazing all the time and they're never hitting these roadblocks and everybody just seems to like be hitting home runs all the time, and it's just not true. Failure will come with the territory of creativity, so how do we get comfortable with that? How do we get comfortable about talking about it, hearing other people's stories? And what we hope is that, in hearing our stories and hearing Mac's story today, that you start to understand that your failure is okay, those things that you try that didn't work out, there's nothing wrong with you, it's all okay, it's all going to be part of it. And we hope that hearing this makes you feel one less alone. Or, if you're having fear of this happening, stop you. We hope that this doesn't scare you, but that it empowers you to say you know Spoiler alert Mac is okay.

Mak: 8:10

After what happened, and what's funny is now I even feel like we're like building it up too much that we're going to tell the story.

Valerie: 8:18

It's going to be like a downer.

Mak: 8:19

That's it, because we're making it seem like I was moments away from prison or something like that, and that's not even remotely close to what it was.

Valerie: 8:27

All right, so let's just tell the story.

Mak: 8:28

But what's even now is like as traumatic as it was for me when I went through it. Now I even feel like we're overselling it.

Valerie: 8:36

So, but I think there's a lot of takeaways and we want you to feel less alone. We want to demystify this topic, so so let's hear it.

Mak: 8:45

So this was like I gotta. I try to think the timeline of this. You know, when did we meet? Was it? Oh, sevens, because it was right before you and I met. It was literally the christmas before we met I think we met in oh eight was it, oh eight. I'm always foggy about that. I gotta, we gotta go.

Mak: 9:00

It was definitely oh eight it was oh eight, okay, so this was like oh seven, so this. So this was quite some time ago. I had the opportunity. So I've always been a train buff, like steam, and I'm very specific Okay, I love steam trains and American style steam trains. If I can get really nerdy for a moment, okay, nothing wrong with the Europeans, but I just love American style locomotives. Wrong with the Europeans, but I just love American style locomotives.

Mak: 9:25

So my whole life I dreamed of of doing something with trains. And when I was very young I had the opportunity to befriend uh an older gentleman who installed a park train 24 gauge park train in the city where I lived, uh, harrisburg, pennsylvania, and um, he kind of was like a mentor to me. He kind of took me under his wing. And I say he was young, I was I don't know nine, 10 years old, and he would let me come hang out there. He's a retired guy, he had a carousel and a train. He'd come let me hang out there and, like, taught me how to take care of the locomotive and all this stuff. And so I did that for several years and I think for him it was just free labor, because I love being there. My parents would drop me off in the morning, I'd work all afternoon and then they'd come pick me up and time went on and I got away from that.

Mak: 10:15

But years later I had the opportunity to come back and buy it, and it was. It was I was coming off the heels of a failed business and I said you know what I'm telling you, we could do a whole failure. I spent. I spent three years building something that never worked, and so I was like okay, this is a great opportunity for me to get back to something that I love, that I'm into. So I signed a deal. There had been a transfer from this older gentleman to somebody else who I sort of knew, actually, and I was told that it was for sale, and so I signed an agreement with this guy that that for that summer season through December, I would be able to operate it myself. We had an operating agreement and at the end of the year I could buy it. So, okay, I'm like really stoked, really pumped, I'm going to, I'm going to like run this train and I'm going to like love every second of it. And I really honestly did.

Mak: 11:26

Now I had forgotten everything I learned when I was younger, but I really sucked my teeth into it and I put a lot of work into fixing everything up. I power washed everything and painted everything. My dad came and helped and we you know it had kind of gotten overgrown. The guy who had it was just kind of kind of milking it for the cash and so I was like, no, we're going to, we're going to fix this thing up and make it really beautiful. So we did. We, I put a lot of. I put a lot of time, effort and energy into it and I had a blast.

Mak: 12:00

And that summer I reworked every possible thing that I could. I changed the crowd flow, I changed the prices, I revamped the snack bar, I did a deal with Pepsi to sponsor what we were doing, brought in new food and, you know, redid just the whole vibe of the place and really got it fixed up, and I even increased the prices and no one cared. So things were going well and there were always big festivals because this was going around a city park and I instituted a new way of transporting people around so you could take a ride on the steam train, but we also had a trolley and so for the first time ever and I couldn't believe anybody ever did this actually used the trolley to transport people around the park because it was fairly large and the three big festivals that summer. I mean I made a ton of money doing it. It was just a buck and we'd take you from. There were three different stops and people loved that, and there were three different stops and people loved that, and so I had both of these entities out the same time the trolley and the train.

Mak: 13:08

It did well. Okay, long story short, it did well. Carousel was great. It was an antique. It did well too, and I had a really great summer and I loved every second of it, if I'm honest, and I thought this is really cool and I had all these big plans and these big ideas in my head for for what I was going to do with this thing. Now, if you know me at all, even slightly, I've got a thing for Christmas. Okay, that's just me. You know I'm. You know I'm Mr Christmas plug for tinsel and cheesecom.

Mak: 13:42

And that's another story. But I do a Christmas radio station every year. I've been doing it for, oh my goodness, what was it? Was this 20 years this year? Yeah, it was 20 years, and so I'm a I'm a big Christmas guy.

Mak: 14:05

So in you know, probably August of that year, I went to the city and I proposed hey, I want to do a big Christmas festival on the Island for Christmas. And they were, they were all in on it. They said great, we'll support you in any way that we can. Now the train had never operated past Halloween. They always did like some kind of a charity based Halloween event, and then that was it and it was closed down for the year. So I had to make all kinds of improvements to make sure it could run in the cold and all this other stuff. So I did, I did what I needed to and I dreamed really big and I loved it because it was literally bringing together everything that I loved in my life. Like even as I'm sitting here now telling this, I don't really think I conceptualize that until this moment.

Mak: 14:46

And I went to a radio station I used to work for. I've been, I've, as we sit here now, I've been in broadcasting for more than 30 years and I worked at a really popular radio station in that city for a long time. I went back to them after being absent forever and I signed this huge radio promotional deal to promote this Christmas event and I called upon people I knew to set up vendor villages. I worked with an entertainment company to have musicians and jugglers and magicians strolling around. I contracted a lighting company to come in and put up a hundred thousand Christmas lights, big displays. That involved me getting all kinds of I mean, it was infrastructure that I had to do. We had to figure out a way to shut down the island. We were going to sell Christmas trees and it was like this whole thing.

Mak: 15:39

And then the, the, the. The icing on the cake was I somehow convinced a carnival company to come, set up a bunch of rides at one end of the railroad and you couldn't like. I wanted to call it the polar express, but you can't do that because it's copyrighted. So I worked with friends of mine who owned a marketing company and we came up with this concept of the North pole express and we turned the whole thing into a giant game and we call it the Great Candy Cane Caper and what it was was.

Mak: 16:11

You bring your kids to the island, you get on the train, you'd have hot chocolate, santa Claus would be there. But we also had Jack Frost and he had stolen all the magical candy canes from the North Pole. And you had to get on the train and the kids had to find all magical candy canes from the North Pole. And you had to get on the train and the kids had to find all the candy canes as they went around the ride, because they were magical candy canes and that's what the reindeer ate to make the reindeer fly.

Valerie: 16:35

Did you come up with all of the whole concept storyline? Yes, All of it.

Mak: 16:40

Now I'm going to be fair. These guys, the marketing agency, they helped kind of edit this and help me pull it together, but this was me, this was a true creative project.

Mak: 16:49

This was exercising every aspect of my creativity that I have ever expressed and it pulled together everything that I loved. It was Christmas, it was Christmas lights, it was Christmas experience. It was Christmas lights, it was Christmas experience. It was carnival rides, amusements, things like that, because I'm really into that stuff. But then I got to promote it on the radio. I bought a massive radio advertising package so I got to create radio stuff and I went so far as to literally write the jingle that was in the radio ad. So I have a bunch of friends in the music industry. We went and sat down one day and I wrote this jingle and we recorded it in a recording studio and I call it my buddy.

Mak: 17:40

Chad is a big time. Everyone who's listening now has heard Chad's voice. He's all over the country. We recorded this incredible radio campaign and we were taking we were kind of taking backhanded shots at Hershey, because Hershey was just up the street and they do this thing called Christmas candy lane, which I love, and they opened the park and they have a couple rides open and stuff. But it was very expensive and so I was like here's what we're going to do. We're going to go on the radio and we're not going to like call Hershey out exactly, but we're going to point out that we've got rides and games and musicians and entertainment and trains and lights and the whole nine and it is significantly cheaper to come do this. You don't have to go all the way to chocolate town. So I think we had this line. It's like, um, we announced all those things and he said at a price that would make chocolate town melt down.

Valerie: 18:36

So okay, I called it out. I mean I didn't say her, she yes but here's what happened.

Mak: 18:45

Was that? But the part of the radio? I mean, I'm telling you right now, if you know me at all, it's like I got to. I was doing everything that I loved and on top of it it I hired a pr firm. We got the mayor involved and he actually issued he went on television on the news and issued a decree for uh, at all points bulletin for capturing jack frost. Like we got the whole thing. The guy that I hired to play Santa was an actor friend of mine and we made him the Santa in the Harrisburg Christmas parade. Like I got this whole thing tied together. I went huge. I went huge and it was fantastic, but it was everything. That was me, it was, it was fantastic, but it was everything that was. That was me and it was.

Mak: 19:49

It was shaping up to be a really, really great event and I was. I was so excited about it because it was everything. It was trains, it was radio, it was writing songs, it was. It was strolling musicians, magicians, like I mean, it was me a hundred percent. It was every part of me that's creative and it was every part of me that lights me up.

Mak: 20:20

I put into this thing and it was also every dollar that I had made all summer. I took every penny I made and I remember the week before we opened I had like 500 bucks left in my bank account and I had even I even got a couple of acquaintances to invest money in this to get a return, um to be paid out. And the deal, part of the deal I cut with the radio station was and this is a very common, at least it used to be you could, uh, they sold tickets to this event, they sold them themselves on a website and they kept all the money and that paid for part of my ad campaign. So they, we, I'm telling you this radio package. I know you sold radio. It was unlike anything. It was a huge radio package. I know you sold radio. It was unlike anything, it was a huge package. Okay, I mean, we were on the air every 10 minutes for two weeks. It was insane. And I even went in and was on the morning show. Like they brought me in to talk about it and, like I said, we got the news and all the news channels were there. We did a whole brief. I mean I'm telling you this. Okay, I made the point, I went big, so everything was looking great.

Mak: 21:51

We were opening the Saturday after Thanksgiving and they put the tickets on sale like a week or 10 days before then and it was the fastest they ever sold any tickets to any event that they had done in the history of this radio program, and I think we sold, I'm going to say, 5,000 tickets, or 8,000 tickets or something like that, in 10 minutes and I thought, oh my goodness, this is it. My life has changed forever. This event is it. So it's the day before Thanksgivinggiving. Now this is when things start to go a little south. So remember, I have five hundred dollars left in my bank account. I had spent every last dime, but I knew that this coming weekend I was probably gonna have tickets for pre-sale. I was gonna have 20 000 people showing up for this thing. I mean, I had 100 porta potties brought in. I'm telling you it was big. So there were. I was like that's it. I'm going to have 20,000 people here. They're all going to pay 12 bucks and I'm going to be able to pay everybody and everything's going to be great and life is going to be good. Thanksgiving happens. I'm riding a high. I feel great. It's Thanksgiving. I'm, like so excited about this event.

Mak: 23:07

But the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I got a little ahead of myself. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I get a call from someone in the parks department and they said hey, we're looking over the plan Now. I had met with these people probably 15 or 20 times. I had to put together a massive plan. They had to approve everything, which they did. Part of it was a liability policy for $5 million, which is pretty standard. They called me the Wednesday before. It was like one o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. They said we need you to make this a $10 million policy or you're not allowed to open on Saturday. So that was a lesson for me that I've carried with me for the rest of my life. They like pulled the rug and how am I gonna get a $5 million liability policy? At one o'clock in the afternoon the day before Thanksgiving, somehow, we pulled it off and by five o'clock that night I had taken that last $500 and a credit card and I got the policy up and I was like, whatever, I'll deal with it later, but I figured it out. That was very stressful for me, but we got the policy and I got it in on time because they were saying well, we're not going to be open Saturday. So if you don't get it by the end of the day today, we won't be able to look at it until Tuesday. So you can't open this week. I'm thinking I've just been promoting this event for 10 days. We're going to be open on Saturday. Now you're telling me I can't. So that was a lesson that I learned in dealing with governments Always get everything in writing ahead of time, which I had not done.

Mak: 24:43

So anyway, long story short, saturday comes. My staff is there. I have no money and I'm like but tonight we're going to be plumb with cash. Everything's going to be great. We're opening. I don't know what time. It was six o'clock, something like that. Everyone's there. Three in the afternoon, we get everything ready and get the train fired up. You know the carnival company's there, they're excited, I'm excited. Get the train fired up. You know the carnival company's there, they're excited, I'm excited, we're all excited and I'm. I'm like it's 5, 30, nobody's there and I'm going. Well, you know, it's saturday, after thanksgiving. Maybe some people, you know, just a little late, they're gonna trickle in. Six o'clock there's like 20 people, 6, 30, maybe 100 people.

Mak: 25:25

We weren't going to close until 10, but I had to close that night by 9 o'clock because there was nobody left to ride. That first night we did 300 people, 400 people and I was expecting 20,000. And I thought, oh no, and I had just barely made enough to cover my expenses for the night, the people I owed money to and everything. So I paid that out and I said, well, it's okay, we're going to open tomorrow, we'll see how it goes. The same thing happened on Sunday. We had about the same crowd and then that was it.

Mak: 26:04

We were closed again until the following Thursday. And so I started to panic because the entertainment company they were like, look, we have to get paid, we got to pay our people and I didn't have enough to pay them. And the carnival company was mad because they were thinking they were going to have all these riders and they didn't have any riders. They didn't have any riders. And I'm starting to freak out Because I have no money. All these people are breathing down my neck and I'm going where are all the people? We had like those 8000 tickets that pre-sold. We only had like 50 show up and I'm going. What's going on? So long story short.

Mak: 26:43

That would be very disorienting, like what's happening I did not sleep, I don't think Monday, tuesday or Wednesday. It was just awful. I felt very, very low and I was trying to keep a happy face and maintain composure because I said, well, it was opening weekend, it was Thanksgiving, thanksgiving. Maybe people are just waiting. So I was like but we've got this coming weekend. We pre-sold all these tickets. There's got to be 20,000 people got to be coming this weekend. So then that Thursday comes and it was the slowest night yet there were. That Thursday we only had like 30 or 40 people and we shut down an hour after we opened and I got a call from the guy that was running the carnival company. He's like look, if we don't have any, if this keeps up, I can't afford to keep my rides open.

Valerie: 27:37

We're gonna leave on sunday and I thought, oh, no, this was supposed to run every weekend until christmas through new year's, yeah, and I'm going.

Mak: 27:47

You I said I'm like you can't go. He's like. He's like hey, I feel bad for you. He's like, but I can't afford like. He's like I'm not a charity and I'm like okay, I get it the entertainment. The woman that ran the entertainment company was like I'm gonna dip into my line of credit if you're willing to start paying back my line of credit if they, I'm freaking out going. Where is everybody?

Valerie: 28:08

What have I done?

Mak: 28:09

Meanwhile all the lights were running on generators because the island didn't have enough power. So I had to have a fuel company come and refill all the generators, and that was expensive and it was just like things were snowballing. I said, okay, friday night, here we go. This is going to be the big night. It's the first weekend in december. Everyone's in the christmas spirit. There's no holiday. Weather was beautiful, and that night we actually had like maybe five or six hundred people and then the following sat we maybe had another 200. And that was barely enough to cover what costs that I had. And I was still in the hole.

Mak: 28:56

And then that Sunday I got a call from the carnival company. They were pulling out and I thought I made all these promises, what am I gonna do? And I I like didn't know what to do. I had no experience with this. I was just this lone guy. I don't know how old I was then, 22 maybe and I'm trying to do and I'm just like, okay, okay, do I reduce the price of tickets? Do I give money back? Like I, because we weren't going to have a carnival now and it was beautiful.

Mak: 29:28

This, I mean this carnival, was great. We called it the north pole like people would. We'd stop, we'd let people off, they'd ride and they'd get on their rides. And we came back like 30 minutes later and we picked them up, we took them back and that following Thursday, I hadn't made any plans. I didn't know what to do. There was an ice storm. I said, ah, I can close and people will be cool with it, and so I closed Thursday and I closed Friday and then I closed Saturday. Now the ice storm had been Thursday but not Friday and Saturday, but we made an announcement that the tracks couldn't handle the trainers. I can't remember, but I was just, I was trying to find cash.

Mak: 30:08

I was trying to figure out how do I get another carnival, it was all this stuff. But by Saturday people who had pre-purchased tickets were starting to get angry because they showed up and we were closed. And I remember it was it was the Sunday afternoon of that second weekend. I'm out with my friend Michael and the news comes on and the headline on the six o'clock news was what happened to the North Pole Express and had video of me and there was vo saying customers in an outrage because tickets you know for the North Pole Express were not honored and it was closed and nobody can figure out why. And my phone blew up and all of a sudden every news station in town was calling me. The newspaper was calling me trying to figure out what happened to this event. And they were like well, there was a carnival here last week but it's not here this week and what is going on? And then the mayor came out and said we don't know anything about this. We don't know.

Valerie: 31:17

Because you were closed for one weekend, because we were closed for one week and people didn't know honestly.

Mak: 31:21

I mean, it probably looked a little shady that we were closed two days after an ice storm and it had melted, but you know. But there the, the, it was so quick, the, the mayor's office, turned on me in a heartbeat and you know, I understand politics. Whatever, they didn't want to have their name associated with it. But, honestly, all of my all like that, that last minute change with the insurance really messed me up. I'm not blaming them for that, but at the same time it didn't help because the credit card that I put all the money on was what I was going to use as my backup. If you've ever owned a business, you get it. So anyway, long story short, it was very public and by the following.

Mak: 32:10

So I had to call the PR guy that I had hired to get me all the good press and I said you've got to step in for me and you've got to explain what's going on. And he's like okay, well, what's going on? And I said I don't have any money. The carnival left. Nobody showed up. I don't have any money. The carnival left, nobody showed up. I don't know what to do. I'm not out here trying to screw anybody. But nobody came. Like we were expecting this massive crowd. We sold 8,000 tickets and of those, I'm telling you, of those 8,000 tickets, we maybe had like 150 come in in the first weekend and I thought, where, where are these people? Because I was depending even though they had prepaid, for I was still depending on them to buy food and do other things that would bring income in. So, um, he had to. He had to start dealing with the, with the, all the news outlets and I mean everybody. It felt like the world was crashing around me and I said I can't do this. I remember his name was Steve. I said, steve, I can't talk to these people. I'm too embarrassed, I'm full of shame. I'm like you have to fix this, we have to close. I can't do this and I'm like I'm breaking a bunch of contracts. I said but I can't, I can't do this. And I'm like I'm breaking a bunch of contracts and said but I can't physically afford to open, I just can't open the train, I just can't do it. So we're gonna cancel it, I'm gonna cancel the whole event. And I called the radio station, said I'm gonna cancel I don't know what that means for the tickets and they said look, we'll give, we'll give the money back. You're our buddy. You worked here for seven or eight years. We've got your back at least. They were like cool about it.

Mak: 33:48

But the headlines and the things I heard, like my name was being associated. It was being said in the media that local businessman, mac mckeon, canceled christmas in harrisburg and all I wanted to do was make an incredible christmas for people. I was the opposite. They were. They were like. They were saying they were making fun of my story. They were like oh, it turns out jack frost is the is the owner and operator of the event.

Mak: 34:21

And it was like no, that's not me, but the it was. I cannot express the pain in my soul that I had to endure. And of course, people are calling me. What's going on? And then the piece de resistance, hershey announced if you purchased a ticket to the North Pole Express, you can use it to get in to Candy Lane. They did a whole campaign about how you purchased a ticket to my event. It was good to get you into Candy Lane and I will say that, as much as that hurt in the moment, I was really proud of myself Because I said Like they heard the ads where I said they were melting down.

Mak: 35:28

And then I melted down. But what's crazy is I was like, but I think I freaked them out a little bit and I thought, okay, maybe I'm a really good marketer. So when your name is being drugged through the mud, especially when it's for something that you had no intention of like, I was being made to look like a criminal and I was. I was anything. But I was under the sheets in my bed, bawling my eyes out, just trying to figure out how to keep this whole thing together and I just I couldn't. I was out of options, I was out of money, I was out of time, I was out of favors and I didn't have that intent whatsoever, whatsoever. I wasn't trying to screw anybody. I wasn't trying to.

Mak: 36:29

I was literally trying to do the opposite you were trying to create magic I was trying to make magic and I think what happened was it really shot me down, because it was an assassination of everything. That was the definition of who I am creatively. It felt like that event was my soul, like on display for the world. It's like I'm giving of myself 100% and I want people to feel good and feel happy and love this because I love this and all I wanted to feel good and feel happy and love this because I love this, and all I wanted to do was make people happy.

Mak: 37:09

And it ended with heartbreak and I was sued. I was sued by a couple different people and vendors. I wanted to pay everybody back that I could and I didn't know how I of my life. I was so low and I didn't know what to do and I was like I love Christmas and this sucks. And out of nowhere, my friend Shane who you know, he was in our wedding he called me and he said hey, man, it doesn't sound like things are going too well for you. Do you want to go on a cruise? And I said when does it leave? And he said tomorrow.

Valerie: 38:14

See ya.

Mak: 38:15

And I said bye, bye, and he's like I'll pay for it, you pay me back whenever I go. You know what dude? There's a long list. I hope you understand that. He was great. He's like hey, whenever, dude, just let's go, I got this and I think that saved my life. And, um, I really do, and I know that sounds dramatic, cause I wasn't like suicidal or anything, but what I mean by that is I don't know where, I don't know where I would have gone, or what I would have done.

Mak: 38:49

I just didn't because I was so heartbroken and in that moment, of course, my family was, was there to comfort me and I had really good friends just saying, hey, you know this is awful and we're sorry that this happened. What can we do? Like I did have those people. It wasn't like I was all alone or anything. But when you're in a place that low and you, it's one thing to fail, it's another thing to fail and everybody on the news is talking about it for days Like this was not a one story and it's over. They were like on the hunt and thank goodness for the PR guyve I think his name is steve. I don't know what I would have done if I had to face that music and um and so it was tough. It was. It was the lowest point of my life.

Valerie: 39:43

I mean, I've obviously heard this story before, but it is hard to hear, even hearing you tell it again. I feel myself kind of getting teary-eyed just hearing that and hearing what happened to you. I think that going through something like that, experiencing like your story, is epic and we wanted to talk about it and tell some of these things because it is epic. But I think experiencing something like that as horrible and heartbreaking and all of that, I feel like it really developed empathy, like I think it really gives you empathy for people who are doing stuff. People who are doing stuff and I think about Brene Brown how, in daring greatly because that's what you did you dared greatly. I mean you went big and I know you can list out a laundry list of mistakes that were made that kind of snowballed some that were outside of your control, some that were in your control, and that's what I want to say.

Mak: 41:04

I you know that insurance thing was it? It it was like kind of the icing on the cake, but I made about 50 bad calls leading up to the event that had I made them differently, I probably would have been okay, um, and I can recognize what those were now. So I take full responsibility for this.

Valerie: 41:24

I'm not trying to put it off on that one event, but that that singular thing like drained my last dollar but what I was going to say is that, endearing greatly the quote I think we've even talked about it before where it's like when you're in the rink with other people doing things and you hear the you know the jest or whatever from the people in the stands. We're not listening to those people. It's the people who are in the rink doing the thing, trying to bring beauty to the world, trying to do something good, trying to bring light and giving of themselves, and I think it gives you just a whole other level of empathy for just people who are trying to create. And again, this is a spectacular story, this is an epic story that most people aren't going to experience, something like that. So I want it not to be a cautionary tale, but it's actually a tale of going doing something, it's a tale of being in the rink. So I want to ask you do you regret it?

Mak: 42:43

No, no, I don't, because in the moment I regretted everything.

Valerie: 42:54

Sure.

Mak: 42:55

But when you come out of it and you come through and you see the light of day looking back now, do you know how much we avoided okay, for as many mistakes as we continued to make into the future with our future businesses, do you know how many mistakes we avoided because of that singular event? It made me much stronger in my ability to see where holes could exist. I was very blind and naive back then for things of this nature, but I came out of it with a knowledge that really helped us, especially when we moved into our next business, which was an ad agency, and we started doing events for people. We were able to do things so successfully because I failed so spectacularly and you know as difficult as that was.

Mak: 44:03

I wouldn't trade that story for anything right now because you know, in a way it is. It's kind of painful to sort of sit here and relive it, but it helped make me who I am today and I'm pretty strong, you know what, and I'm a pretty smart guy when it comes to marketing and putting events together and understanding what it takes to be successful in that world. And I never would be that, I wouldn't be that guy without that spectacular failure I had to go through that to make me who I am today. But you know what it gave me? More than anything else, it it? It gave me a not a sense of being like risk averse, like I came out of it understanding that you can kind of fail big and still be okay, and so we've been able to take very big risks that have paid off for us high reward because of that event.

Valerie: 45:20

Well, it's almost to me hearing something that spectacular it would. It's almost like if somebody is listening and thinking about their worst case scenario. You know, and we kind of we go there sometimes and we build things up so big in our heads. We are storytellers as people and as part of being these incredible storytellers that we are as human beings, that is also gives us the stories of our fears and our anxieties and we have the these ideas of if I do this, and then what if this happens in the worst case scenario? And what if I put this out there and I get made fun of, or, you know, we have these big things that may be holding us back.

Valerie: 46:09

That giant fear comes true. There's a level of resilience there and just the capability of human beings to be resilient, to be strong, to have a trust at the same time with the parts that were outside of your journey or outside of your control, of your control, that this journey that you are on. It's like a trust in in that. At the same time, if that makes sense, it's kind of like, okay, if the bottom falls out and the worst case scenario happens, I'm still gonna be okay.

Mak: 47:01

Well, I want to say too that that event and thank goodness for Shane taking me on the cruise, but when I came back I still had to face the music. I couldn't hide from it. I tried to run away from it but it didn't work, and the after effects of that in terms of reputation and finances and things like that went on for a couple of years. But I came out of that and I said back to basics. I'm going to go back to radio, I'm going to go to the thing I know that I can absolutely succeed in and I'm never going to open a business ever again. Because, like I said, I was coming off a failure Now.

Mak: 47:49

I had a couple of hits before that, like I had two really successful businesses before the two big failures. But I was like I can't do this again, I just can't. It was too big, it was too public, it was too hurtful, it was it. I just can't. It was too big, it was too public, it was too hurtful, it was. It ripped apart everything that was me essentially as a creative and so I went back to radio and I met you.

Mak: 48:15

Yeah, you came into my life two months after that three months after that was Christmas.

Valerie: 48:23

Yeah, we met on the first day of spring.

Mak: 48:27

And so I guess the point there is yeah, I had to have that failure, but that got me back to my core and I retreated back in. I said OK, wait, what actually lights me up, what makes me feel good and how can I start to rebuild? And when you fail, the first reaction I think for most people is hide in the dark and get away from the world. And if you have to do that for a while, do it Feel it Like I said? I was like under the sheets in my bed, crying, but I got that out. It's almost like mourning, like when you have a death of somebody you love or a pet or something like that. You go, you gotta feel that, you gotta get that out. You can't suppress that. That's bad, and that's what I did.

Mak: 49:19

I, like, mourned my creativity, I mourned what could have been, I mourned the dream, I mourned the loss and it helped me process it. And then, when I came out on the other side sometime after new years, I said, okay, if I'm going to rebuild, I got to get back to the basics. I got to go to what I know. I got to do what feels comfortable, even if it's a little humiliating, because at the time I thought going back to being on the radio was a little humiliating because I had had major success on a national level in radio years before and, like now, I'm back on some small podunk radio station. But I had an opportunity to do it and then I met you and three months later we started a business.

Valerie: 50:11

The business you said you would never start.

Mak: 50:13

Yes, and. But what happened was? I recognized in myself that, okay, you, you, okay, that didn't work, but it's okay, you're okay, you can still do things. Just because that didn't work and it didn't work in a big way doesn't mean that you are not capable of doing big things. It didn't teach me that, nope, I should never try to do anything big, ever again. What it did do is make me a little wiser, made me a little more cautious, but it didn't tamp down my spirit in the long run.

Mak: 50:54

For a while there it did, but I thought no, I can still do this, I can come back from this and I can grow something bigger and stronger, and I can use this to my advantage.

Valerie: 51:06

I think what you were doing was so tied to just you and those parts of you that are that are undeniable, and I think that that's very quintessentially creative as well, that when you have those pool pools of yourself that you're like, well, this is still real. Pools of yourself that you're like, well, this is still real, like that is still very much me, and the dust needs to settle, and you need to hold yourself in those moments just with the gentleness and what you need to almost nurse yourself back to health from a blow like that. But I think in a way, it almost I mean, tell me if it it kind of solidified it almost, that it was real. It sounds like that, even facing that kind of a failure, that you're like, okay, but this is still very much me and I still love these things, and it almost it didn't ruin christmas for me yeah it didn't destroy.

Mak: 52:09

It didn't. It didn't destroy any of that. It's weird because in the moment it felt like it was all destroyed yeah and it felt like I had no friends and I felt like everybody hated me and I felt like I was literally essentially called the grinch of harrisburg and I was like Mr Like. I'm like Mr Christmas.

Valerie: 52:26

Yeah.

Mak: 52:27

I love Christmas more than all y'all but, um, but that was, that was hard and it all. But what it also taught me, like, like you mentioned earlier, something I never really thought about from that perspective but empathy for people who are in. So I think that's probably informing what we're doing today, even to this moment, why I am such a cheerleader for people who want to try, because you should, and if you get anything out of this, I'm here and I went on from that experience to build, along with you, the two biggest companies I ever built. That was not the period. End of sentence. End of story.

Valerie: 53:14

And it could have been.

Mak: 53:16

It absolutely could have been. But what came next was something that I never even remotely imagined. I never thought in a million years that I would be the CEO of an ad agency and that I would be doing keynote presentations on digital marketing. I never thought that I would be sitting across the table from people at major retailers national retailers negotiating deals, and that's what happened next, and it was like it. Had I let that defeat me, I don't know where I'd be right now. I'd probably be doing mornings on some radio station somewhere, and not that that would be bad, because I love that.

Mak: 54:10

But look at, look at what we're doing now. Like I really love what we built and what we've become and where we're headed. And the thing that I've learned the most is you can't try to control where you're going. I have just enough light to kind of see the next step and I take that next step, and I understand that. Ultimately, do I have some big goals? Sure, like there are things that I want and you know what those are, and we talk about that kind of stuff. But what I learned is the path is never the path you think you're going to take. And so, if you look at it that way you really can't truly fail, because if you don't know where you're going, you can't say you went the wrong way.

Valerie: 55:05

I think we tend to forget the detours in our lives because we're in the present moment and things feel really heavy and they feel scary. But then, just looking back at the different detours that I'm sure everybody has, those things that didn't work out the way that you thought, or it may not have been even driven by a failure, but just maybe a disappointment. Something fell through, you didn't get the job, or the house fell through and then you ended up in a different house, and there's all of these little paths and there's definitely a spiritual component of that for us. And there's definitely a spiritual component of that for us in that there's a trust and knowing that we are going to be held and taken care of, and trusting that that journey is going to lead where it needs to go, and that's very, very hard in the moment needs to go, and that's a very, very hard in the moment. Um, but really all we have is is the present. Anyway, we can be worried about these things and let it. Let it stop us, but when we can come back to the present moment and just take those next foot in front of the other, trusting that, yeah, the path is going to be filled with detours.

Valerie: 56:26

If everybody knew exactly how everything they did was going to turn out and just by doing something means that it's going to turn out then everybody would be doing it. But they're not doing it Right. Because Good point, because there's an inherent surrender that happens when you chase creativity, or when you I shouldn't say chase or just when you follow it, when you follow the promptings, when you go after these things, there's the inherent risk. So, I think, going into it not with a posture of fear for what's going to happen, but with a surrender at the same time, and you go with the light that you're given.

Valerie: 57:11

We mentioned my dad in the last episode, but that's something my dad says as well. So you just go with the light that you're given, and isn't that really all any of us can do anyway? Because even if you have like a surefire thing, like for you, you're saying, hey, it was a surefire thing, we had these tickets sold, it was okay, it was a little scary, but it's a surefire thing. But there's no such thing ever as a surefire thing, and isn't it funny that that's the case in life? You know, like we're talking about creativity and taking risks and doing these things and being vulnerable and going maybe a path less traveled, on a creative path. But even the people who are like, nope, I'm not doing that I'm going to stay right where I am.

Valerie: 57:59

I want to stay the safest possible and and control. I feel like your life shrinks, your soul shrinks down and you're not at that fullest expanse that you could possibly be. Oh, by the way, and you still don't have control. So it's kind of the the lose lose because it's life and life comes at you hard and fast sometimes. So to me, to be living large, whatever that means to you and and people are cut out for different things, that's the thing. There's no one-size-fits-all. We are huge on that. We actually absolutely despise the people who are like we have a course that's a one size fits all for everybody.

Valerie: 58:43

We hate that, and because there's not a one size fits all, and so what living large to you is going to be different from what living large to somebody else is. But the point is, it's to the expanse of your soul and who you are made to be, and there's nothing in nature that holds themselves back from that. You don't have redwood trees or dolphins or things in nature that it's like no, I need to stay small. The peony bush does not say, oh, I shouldn't be so showy. But then you have the violets and the dandelions, and they're made to be that, and that's what's beautiful about the world, that's what's beautiful about humanity that we have all of it.

Valerie: 59:30

But the point being, nothing in nature holds itself back from its fullest expression the plants and the trees. It's like they're going to twist themselves and twist their roots and everything to be what they are. Nobody, nothing in nature, is holding itself back from that, but we, as humans, we do. We hold ourselves back, and it's not going to look like other people, it's going to be your version of what does that out loud life look like? What is that whisper to follow? Out loud life look like? What is that whisper to follow? Even if it is. It has a risk, even if it you risk looking foolish or having your friends and family think what are they doing?

Mak: 1:00:17

Well and that's what I want to say, because everything you're saying is so true, and that event was like the fullest expression of who I was, and it didn't go the way I expected, but you know what, for the people that came, it was pretty darn magical. It was, it was, it was really nice and I was proud of it. And I think I think one of the key things I want you to take home from this is that, even though I was all over the news, that even though I was all over the news and I had this experience and my name was run through the mud within six months, nobody even remembered it. Nobody.

Valerie: 1:00:57

That's a good point.

Mak: 1:00:58

Nobody remembered. And so what Val is saying is so poignant, because give your full expression, give everything that you have, put it all out there, and if it doesn't work, you might feel like an idiot for a couple of days.

Valerie: 1:01:13

Which not everything will.

Mak: 1:01:14

Right, but nobody's going to remember, nobody's going to care. Okay, yeah, your mom might, your best friend, might, might, but they're your best friend and you're your mom. So you move on and you and you do it again, and you and you keep living out that full expression of yourself until, until it all clicks. And that's how you deal with it. That's how you deal with the failure, like if. How you deal with the failure Like if it happens. You feel the pain, you mourn it, and then you get back to basics and then you start over and you go okay, I'm ready to do this again. Let's do this again, because there's nothing, there's no pain that isn't worth expressing that magical spark that you feel within you. Take it from me, take it from me.

Mak: 1:02:18

And this is not the first business I had where my name was run through the mud in the media. This was actually the second time this happened to me publicly and it never. It didn't get easier, I can say that. But what I can tell you is it didn't keep me from trying, and that's the, that's the trick. You just gotta, you just gotta buckle up and do it again and start over and go okay, that didn't work. I mean, look at Steve Jobs. That guy got kicked out of Apple and then he went on to make a company that he sold for like $700 million and then Apple begged him to come back and then he turned it into the most profitable company of all time.

Valerie: 1:03:01

Isn't it interesting how all of the people who have really done big things, their stories are peppered with these things, which is what we were saying at the top of this episode is hey, get ready, you want to live unbound. You want to release that gorgeous soul of yours and your purpose and your calling and the beauty that you want to bring into this world. It's like Do it. But the disappointment, I should say, is part of the territory.

Mak: 1:03:43

It is or at least things not going to plan Well, no, disappointment is going to be part of the territory it is, or at least not things not going to plan.

Valerie: 1:03:48

Disappointment is going to be part of the territory. Yeah, but what we're saying is even in the most epic and spectacular of bad situations, which we have other doozies to tell.

Mak: 1:03:59

Well, and I was going to say, and this sea is spectacular in the realm of my life, but there are people with way more spectacular failures than this and um, but it's still worth it.

Mak: 1:04:10

It's still. It's still worth it. And I, and now I'm thinking of, and now I'm thinking of jonathan larson. We watched tick, tick, boom maybe a couple months ago, and he spent what? 10 years trying to get that his first show on broadway, and it just wasn't working and it wasn't working and it wasn't working. And everybody from Stephen Sondheim to Stephen Schwartz was like, look, this just isn't working. And he kept at it, and he kept at it, and he kept at it. And they were just like you, just, you just got to stop. And so one day he's like, fine, you, just, you just got to stop. And so one day he's like fine, whatever.

Valerie: 1:04:48

And he gave up and then he wrote rent.

Mak: 1:04:50

It's almost like and he changed Broadway forever.

Valerie: 1:04:53

He let go of the outcome. He did Isn't that interesting, like you're holding so tightly with your fist, like if this doesn't go this way, then I'm, but then you just let go and God is like, oh, but there's something else here, but wait. It's like isn't that so interesting? It's like in the surrender of it, in letting go of the grip, in understanding that we can't always understand yeah.

Mak: 1:05:25

And I can honestly say that was probably one of my biggest problems was I was just trying to control everything so much originally and because of that I missed a bunch of stuff and that's what led to to some of the bad decisions is because I was very outcome focused, like I was visualizing me being a millionaire by the end of the year. And instead I. I owed people a million dollars. It was with the other way, so um but you're here. Here I am. I'm going to tell the story.

Valerie: 1:06:01

And I think your story is going to help a lot of people. I hope that this story has encouraged you, that you will be okay by you following your soul's path.

Mak: 1:06:13

The darkest moment of my life led to my wife Like if it had been a success, you and I never would have met.

Valerie: 1:06:24

Which is a whole other thing we could get into about my chain of events that put me at that radio station, and it is again. We can look at these things in the past and go, wow, so we need to look at that and think about that for our present situation too. That what, if, what if things are working out?

Mak: 1:06:42

That's a phrase, that's that's one of my favorite things.

Valerie: 1:06:46

When things are going wonky or chaotic or it just feels like, oh my goodness, what in the world is happening. We started saying the phrase what if everything is working out in our favor? And it is amazing, Adopt that phrase. What if everything is working out in my favor?

Mak: 1:07:05

And that's another great way. That's a fantastic lens through which to look at things when they don't go well, like I'm thinking now of the Garth Brooks songs, some of God's Greatest Gifts, or Unanswered Prayers. There's just such wisdom in that concept and that's essentially what you're saying is, if you are outcome focused, then that's all you're focusing on. You don't really have the ability to see how perhaps what you're going through now, even if it's terrible, is working out for something so much better.

Mak: 1:07:38

It's like when our daughter is like I'm like, oh, I've got an ice cream cake in the freezer and she's screaming because I didn't give her, you know, a cookie, and I'm like, don't hate, you got to keep it under screaming because I didn't give her, you know, a cookie. And I'm like, don't hate, you got to keep it under control because I got something for you. And she's just so mad about the cookie and she doesn't know that if she keeps screaming, she's not going to get the ice cream cake. It's like, but there's something much better coming along. If she would just be patient and be chill about it. You know what I mean, and sometimes I think that's us. You know we're. We let these things get down and we complain and all of this, but then there's something so much better just on the horizon and sometimes it's not just on the horizon.

Mak: 1:08:14

Sometimes it's 10 years later, but it's coming.

Valerie: 1:08:19

Well, and I think it's the trust, and when you are consistently seeking your own alignment and becoming who you are meant to become, following the whispers of not your fear, but following the whispers of when you really get quiet and what is nudging you forward creatively, then the journey does become the thing, because you are in alignment, you aren't fighting like, you're not trying to swim upstream anymore, you're caught with the flow and you're just like look, I don't quite know where this is headed, but I know that I'm following these whispers of myself and sometimes that really is a journey of self-discovery.

Valerie: 1:09:05

That is a process that happens in a lot of invisibility, where you may not see the fruit of that but know that you are becoming. And by you seeking that out and seeking out that alignment, we often don't know who we are or our calling or what we're supposed to do, and those things change too. So I think that having just that overall gentleness with yourself and knowing that anytime you're seeking your alignment and that calling of your soul, which we firmly believe for human beings is going to be to create, it's going to be to make a lasting impression on this world I'm thinking of the book Miss Rumpius that we read to.

Valerie: 1:09:52

Vienna, where it's the lupine lady and her grandfather told her you must make the world more beautiful. And she plants all of these lupines and I truly believe that when we do get to our soul's calling to us, it is going to be in some form of making the world more beautiful in an infinity amount of different ways and if you know that, if you have kids, you probably know that book. I mean it's really famous and if not, it's a great book. Look up Miss Rumpheus.

Mak: 1:10:21

Yes, if you don't have kids, read the book anyway. It's a children's book but it's so full of wisdom. But my favorite line in that book is and it's a single line on a page after a long winter, spring came. And every time I read that, even when I'm reading it to to the girls, that's how I read it there. I don't even think there's a comma there, but that's how I read it. I don't even think there's a comma there, but that's how I read it. After a long winter, spring came and that's literally how I feel it is. When you go through like if your winter is sunny and 65 or 60, when spring comes, you're like whatever. Spring comes, you're like whatever. But if the winter is is long and dark and cold, a little hard, when spring comes it's such a, it's like it feels so good and that's what being creative and giving of yourself is like, because there is no spring without a long winter.

Valerie: 1:11:31

But the real secret is learning how to love the winter.

Mak: 1:11:33

If you can figure out how to love the winter, then when spring comes it feels even better.

Valerie: 1:11:43

There's something to be said for a preparatory season, and aren't we always in that? Because, as human beings, we're never arriving. And so isn't it interesting to think that you, right now, could be in a real season of preparing, and that could be through failure, that could be through disappointment. Nothing in your life is wasted, not one thing.

Mak: 1:12:08

And so that was probably one of the last points I wanted to make was with the wisdom of removal now from that situation. There hasn't been a day I haven't thought about that train. I mean literally every day of my life since then, because I loved it. There is something about that that just filled me up in a way that most of the things I've done hasn't. And I just tell myself I was too early, I was too early, it was too early, I got there too soon and I it wasn't for me yet.

Mak: 1:12:59

And I firmly believe that someday coming and I don't know when it is it's probably not going to be that train, but I'm going to own one again and I'm going to get another shot and I'm going to do it right. And that's a very comforting thought for me and it's something that I look forward to. But I'm not trying to force it, because I know when it's time it will happen and it will happen organically, because a lot of that situation was forced, even the opportunity to take it over. The guy that was leasing it to me, I don't think, really wanted to let it go. He wasn't ready yet, he was making things difficult. There were, I mean, there were lots of little things that that now, as a guy my age, looking back with all my experience, I'm going yeah, that's a red flag, that was a red flag that was a red flag.

Mak: 1:13:45

That was a red flag but how do you know? A red flag until you do it Until you have a red flag.

Valerie: 1:13:51

That's with anybody that's with anything.

Mak: 1:13:52

Right, yeah, and so, um, so now I'm, I'm now. I'm just sitting in anticipation, and that's an exciting moment because I know someday, at some point, I'm going to be sitting minding my own business and the phone's going to ring and they're going to be like you know, what Do you want to train? And I'm going to know the timing is right, and so that's something else to take with you If you have a failure. Maybe you're just a little too soon, but that doesn't mean that you do nothing in between.

Mak: 1:14:27

No, you keep going it's.

Valerie: 1:14:28

you keep going, you put one foot in front of the other and again, you continue to choose that alignment, day after day. It's like alignment plus courage plus action. That, to me, is the sauce alignment followed by courage to take the action. Yes, that is the path, that is the way through, that is, to me, the way to a life well lived that will feel in just alignment to your calling and that expansiveness of what you're capable of and the beauty that you're capable of bringing from those parts of your heart that that are real.

Mak: 1:15:08

I couldn't have said it better myself. I couldn't. That's, that's really good so well, thank you, mac for sharing your story. I know that that was that was a lot.

Valerie: 1:15:20

I don't think, I don't think you build it up too much.

Mak: 1:15:23

It was pretty, too much it was pretty, it was a lot, but um well, I mean I guess that's part of the point is that with, even with time removed, you know it doesn't feel that big anymore and that's what I want to encourage you with Like and it could just be, it could be anything, it just it. With time it does get better and it's like, if you can learn to be comfortable with that, if you can learn to be comfortable with the discomfort.

Valerie: 1:15:50

Or learn how to fail.

Mak: 1:15:52

Yes, learning how to fail is probably.

Valerie: 1:15:54

Learning how to fail well, learning how to fail fast.

Mak: 1:15:58

You know, all of those things One of the best things that I can say, because that will serve you very, very well, because, oh man, there's nothing worse than feeling something in your soul and just not doing it Right.

Valerie: 1:16:10

And I do feel like you made this point before, but I just want to punctuate it that there's not a whole lot of scenarios that happen now on your entrepreneurial or creative journey that you don't feel like, oh yeah, I can handle that, like it built something in you that's like all right, if I could face this, then I can do this, I can face this, and that's really just the journey of growth and becoming, and although it's painful, I mean we have how many analogies we can say about going through the fire like that and then having the more capacity, having the capability and the strength that that brought well.

Mak: 1:16:49

The other thing it taught me is when I, when I, I've always sort of searched out mentors in my life. Now, when I, when I seek advice from people, I seek advice from people who failed. That's way more valuable to me than someone who, like, got an mba and now they're a lawyer, a banker or they're you know, just you know, in some kind of business. I'm not knocking that, but in a kind of a way I am because the, the people I know who have failed and then gone on to do big things, they're there, they've got the biggest hearts. They want to give away the most.

Valerie: 1:17:27

It's part of that empathy.

Mak: 1:17:29

They encourage you and they also know what the heck they're talking about. But more importantly and what I really learned is they know what they don't know and so, instead of pretending or acting like, oh, I've got this figured out, they go you know what. I really don't know how to answer that question, but these three people might, and that's something that I've really loved. Learning is I really know. I can speak so confidently about what I do because I know what I don't know, and I know what I don't know from having failure.

Valerie: 1:18:02

Yeah.

Mak: 1:18:03

And that's a really powerful place to be, when you don't have to know everything and you know that not everything's going to work, but you're okay with it and you know what you don't know, so you know who to ask for help, and that is such. I think you just feel like a like, you feel like a superhuman when you can finally look at life from that position.

Valerie: 1:18:26

Yeah, well, I hope that this episode was helpful for you. I hope that it made you feel less alone in your own fears or your own experiences of disappointment, of failure, of letdown, and let's just again normalize that it's okay. Like you were saying, mac, about the people who have experienced this, they have a level of empathy, there's that level of like you, like look at each other. You're like I get it. This is hard, you're doing, you're taking the road less traveled, because everybody would be doing it if it was easy. But you choosing your alignment, you choosing to enter this unbound way of being and creativity is going to what ultimately open you up. But if it were easy, everybody would do it.

Valerie: 1:19:13

So we hope that this makes you feel less alone. We hope this makes you feel empowered, that even in the midst of those things that don't go right, there's always a sliver of light in there. There's always you moving to your becoming. Nothing is going to be wasted and we're going to be back again continuing to hopefully encourage you on this journey and on this path and sharing more stories and all of it. So we hope that you are getting a lot out of this. If so, we would so appreciate a review. It really, really helps other creatives who need to feel less alone because we have a dark world out there. We need more people putting out beauty into the world, putting forth their souls, alignment and what they are called and specifically made to do. We need that. Yes, there's not too many people doing that out there, and so if this would help a creative that you know, share it with them, leave a review. We would be so grateful.

Mak: 1:20:18

Reviews mean a lot and subscribing too. Yes, hit the subscribe button. That really does help juice up the algorithm and help more people find us. It makes a big difference.

Valerie: 1:20:26

So thank you so much again, and we will talk to you soon. Bye.

Mak: 1:20:30

Bye-bye.