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:
The dilettante athlete archetype
Attunement through travel
Access to distributed cognition
The flex and flow in relationships
What is the hedonist archetype?
The community and the hedonist
Mark Hiddleson’s structure for meetings and gatherings
Practices for conscious accountability
In this episode…
Each person is whole – an intact unit or entity that is complete in itself. Collectively, we are all part of a bigger whole or community.
How do we ensure that we are making positive contributions, building great relationships, and having fun in the communities we belong to?
In this episode of The Tao of Pizza Podcast, host Mark Hiddleson is interviewed by Dr. Jeremy Weisz of Rise25. Mark discusses the integral contribution to community through the lens of the hedonist archetype and how it relates to professional and personal life. He talks about the access to distributed cognition, the flex and flow in relationships, and how a hedonist relates with the community. Mark also shares how he structures meetings and gatherings to ensure everyone is involved in setting intentions, creating clarity, and practicing conscious accountability.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Specialized Storage Solutions, Inc. contact phone: 707-732-3892
Mark Hiddleson's email: markhiddleson@aol.com
“The Way of Joy Qigong and Tapping Into Your Energy With Vicki Dello Joio” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
“Automation and Safety in the Material Handling Industry With Sal Fateen” on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
"Nurturing Good Relationships in the Material Handling Industry With Nancy Fateen" on The Tao of Pizza Podcast
“The Art and Science of Storage and Distribution With Mark Hiddleson of Specialized Storage Solutions” on Legends Behind the Craft podcast
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 holistic look 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 0:16
Mark Hiddleson here host 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. Before I introduce today's guests, I wanted to mention a few past guests. Vicki Dello Joio with a great conversation about energy and qi gong Sal Fateen, fifth year industry expert in our business on seismic engineering, warehouse safety, and Nancy Fateen is COO and had a great conversation with Nancy and a lot of great feedback. That's a great episode to check out. And then I was hosted recently by Drew Hendricks on the Legends Behind the Craft podcast and had a great conversation with Drew he asked me gruesome really big questions about our industry in the specific to the beverage industry in the wine industry, but just overall, something great to check out on his podcast, which is Legends Behind the Craft. Today we have Dr. Jeremy Weisz here of Rise25, who's done 1000s of interviews with successful entrepreneurs and CEOs. And we flipped the script today. And he's going to be interviewing me, Jeremy, great to see you again.
Jeremy Weisz 1:31
Mark. I'm excited. Today we're going to talk about if anyone's followed some of the episodes we've done. You know, we talked about different archetypes and how they weave into your personal life and business. And today we're gonna talk about the integral contribution to community in the hedonist archetype and I'll have you explain that in a minute. But before we get to that this episode is brought to you by Specialized Storage Solutions. Anyone who knows you, Mark, you've been in the logistics and storage industry for decades now. And you provide industry leading warehouse storage solutions nationwide. So basically, if someone needs rack, shelving, carts, conveyors, mezzanine, you know, they need help with design engineering installations, anything under the sun. If you don't know, you'll find someone or you know, someone who knows, as people listen to the episodes, you know, people have been doing this for a long, long time. So sometimes people don't even realize that you can actually help with permit acquisition services. So you take a holistic approach to an entire business supply chain when you go in and the ecosystem that is involved in so if you want to learn more, go to specialracks.com or give them a call 707732389 to 11. I know you have you share your personal email address for podcast listeners, they can email you questions or if they have questions about you know, warehouse storage and retrieval systems markhiddleson@aol.com. Mark before we dig into the integral contribution to community I know you know where we last time our conversation kind of left off was the integral attunement which was the dilettante athlete so I'd want like you to circle back to that for a second before we get into this one.
Mark Hiddleson 3:16
Yeah, yeah, and then dilettante is a is a word that I love more than amateur, but it means basically the same thing. And the amateur athlete is the biggest one of my favorite archetypes, because I love training for things and I love the the the parallels between how you train and prepare, you know, I was thinking like athletes, they're proactive because they they practice you know, the practicing probably 100 times or 1000 times more than the actual performance. I think there's a lot anything that is worth achieving a lot of it takes a lot of practice. So the one that we talked about a few things and email in the in the shadow archetype. I mean, that's the good part of the athlete is the training and the shadows is kind of being overconfident. And, but but the last few days, we need to talk about travel like travel in attunement and attunement is really, it's a it's not a place that you arrive, it's looking at yourself, your body, your human life is basically like an instrument like you would tune in an instrument. And one of the ways I found is travel, and I know like not everybody can afford to travel it's one of the things that I put high on my list of things to do in life because you know, those experiences of being another culture where you don't you don't speak the language. And the both my parents did study abroad in Mexico to learn the language and one of my friends business associates, he says the the best, the best way to learn a language is submerge vision. And it's it's immersion is the word but it is when you're traveling it is kind of feel like submerged in like you're submerged. And there's a lot of assumptions that we make about how life should go or the way things people other cultures approach things. And, and travelled is just, it's a great way, there's no way to explain it when you're there. But, you know, even the way buildings look, the architecture, the the sights, the scenes, the smells, how things move around, I mean, traffic, I mean, one thing, I have a rule, I don't ever drive, if I'm going to a foreign country, because, you know, there's roundabouts and there's people, you know, they use their horn more than their brake. So just a great way to kind of check in. And then in our business, we're always using when we travel, we're going to be looking at specific systems, you know, when you go to an island, you know, here we live in California, and we're distributing products all over the country on railroads and trucks and everything like that. And we have an A port, that a lot of stuff comes in through our port, but the smaller islands we were just recently toured the Bahamas. And it was it was a really storm and it was really wet. And he could seem like like there's water everywhere. But since we're in California, and it's a, you know, it's a 30 year drought cycle for the last few 1000 years. And so is water is a big deal here, where's the water coming from is it Wells is a canal. And he said, we have some whales that didn't work out very well, but they actually truck they're what they're bringing in on boats. So they're moving water, like people's drinking water on a ship. So, you know, things we take for granted here, you know, we're worried is the rivers a little lake is lower than it was last year. But you know, you know, within the next 25 years, it's going to come back. So if you can wait that long for water, but they're they're having to truck it in from another island, so and then a lot of things in our business, a lot of the cost justifications for the projects we do with racking shelving and conveyors is, you know, you're saving a lot in real estate and we help companies optimize their space. And then it's also time because if you can have stuff, you know, closer together and more organized, it takes less labor. So land costs, labor costs are really a lot higher. In other in some places, it's lower, you know that, that supply to fix our supply chains, but a lot of place for our industry, they're doing more innovation, racking storage, because they run out of land. And they're for whatever, you know, a lot of social reasons that labor costs are higher. So they're looking for ways to to maximize their their labor force and their land. So a lot of the systems a lot of the big automated systems that were talked about in my interview with South 18, that's one of the reasons that was a great one to bring up is because Europe is probably 20 years ahead of the US. MIT, Sal says they're catching up, a lot of European companies are moving here. And it's kind of the, the ideas are spreading on how to optimize facilities and supply chains. So travelled for me, you know if you can do it, and we always, you know, we make it a learning experience. It's one of the best ways for attuning your mission, vision and values and kind of see how other people are doing it and be open to changing the way change, it's another paradigm will travel is another way to look at paradigms. There's a lot of innovations
Jeremy Weisz 8:45
have come from going to other countries, I mean, that some things are normal there. And they're not here I remember, you know, hearing about some of the stories of people going to Brazil and experiencing coconut water, which is normal there. And then they brought it here, which you know, now it's much more prevalent. But before it wasn't, and they brought it from some, you know, the experience in another country and brought it here and catches like wildfire. So there's a lot of different either suffers normal there or bringing different innovations that have some other countries or part or regions have figured out and bringing it to your region industry.
Mark Hiddleson 9:28
You reminded me to one of my favorite stories, and I haven't read any of his books, but I'm pretty sure his name is the founder of Starbucks is Howard Schultz right there. His name?
Jeremy Weisz 9:40
Howard Schultz. Yeah, I mean, the I think he's right, currently the CEO, as well, but
Mark Hiddleson 9:47
he's the founder. And like he invented the $5 cup of coffee. Well, he didn't invent it. He did r&d, which a lot of you told me or was but it's rip off and duplicate. In r&d, he went to Europe. And he saw these amazing cafes. And it is I mean, that's another thing and you travel like it's an experience just to go to a cafe and order a scone, and a cappuccino. You know, it's not like they're not in a rush or anything like that. That could be your whole goal for full day in France, or Italy's a lot like that. And I remember hearing something or reading something, but he had and this is what I call a Satori moment. We talked about this in the attunement, it's like, where do you feel something in your whole body? He was like, wow, we don't have they like this would work in America. And they'd like just, we don't have it. And then they went home and created and then buy my coffee from local suppliers. Mmm, coffee is one of my, my passions. But the thing I mean, Starbucks, the thing I love about it is, anywhere you go, and you want to get a cup of coffee, that's, it's gonna be awesome. And then they create those experiences, you know, everywhere. So and yeah, it can be basically adopted it from a coconut water. And, and now, in our industry, it's automated storage and retrieval systems, you know, 100 foot tall buildings with automated systems for racking shelving lift trucks, you know, it's basically like a giant Pez machine that you just push one button and polish sheets out there. And
Jeremy Weisz 11:28
I was looking at a video yesterday and someone was showing me a URL somewhere. The video was of a robot, three, you know, making coffee, and serving to someone. They have seen that before.
Mark Hiddleson 11:41
It San Francisco Airport has one and it's awesome. It's a robot. And it just, yeah, they it's called Cafe X something or x cafe. But the last time I got off a plane and started it was a few weeks ago, it was gone. But I wonder if they're moving it around. And yeah, the thing is pretty awesome. It's all in a glass enclosed the deal. But it's exactly what I saw. I'm afraid to use those things. When we designed technology we put technology in but if I ever want to order a cup of coffee, or one of those things, I probably send my kids here. Here's the deal because I'm I can touch that thing. And it would just just blow I used to be I was afraid he is a copy machine when I worked in office, because other guys could come and they could copy and collate like 40 pages stapled three old punch print on both sides. And I just wanted to make one copy of one sheet of paper and I would push the button would break.
Jeremy Weisz 12:43
starts coming out of it.
Mark Hiddleson 12:45
Yeah, yeah, I think I've used the self checkout one time. But that cafe x or x Cafe is I mean, I think that's, that's the future. I mean, I think, you know, we're gonna have a robot looked amazing.
Jeremy Weisz 12:59
Yeah. I don't know, if you want to get into connection to community or go to talk about going into the integral contribution. I know that there's a piece of the, you know,
Mark Hiddleson 13:13
the top athlete
Jeremy Weisz 13:15
when you talk about in connection community,
Mark Hiddleson 13:17
because that's another way of attunement, and it leads right into to the next chapter. So that's a perfect segue is that you know, one of the things I've learned and I've got I've got another section we'll talk about is networking is not working, is the access to distributed cognition, which sounds like a big word, but when, when, you know, the older you get, and you know, if we put relationships first and that's what a lot of this about everything we've talked about, the archetype is is kind of just being more authentic about relationships, and that, you know, people are really important part of any kind of innovation or, you know, and I was thinking of the words collected intelligence is something that that I've heard in there's a International Society of service innovation professionals in a lot of their books are about collective intelligence. And that's the archetypes are kind of an access to a collective energy or a collective, you know, way that for 1000s and 1000s years, all the stories you know, that we tell ourselves we tell each other that we've created collective intelligence and when you have mastermind as the other word, I said, we should have a better word for the mastermind but that was a think it's a Napoleon Hill concept. And when you get multiple minds together, you create this higher mind. That's really everybody's and, and access to that is really, you know, it gives us a lot of ability. First of all you can it's intuitive, because you're working with other people, you're making commitments with other people, you're being accountable to them and They're accountable to you. So so you're learning through through working with other people. And other thing Inmos it's important, and I was having a conversation with Michele Carroll, she's going to be on the podcast soon, or she was just, this is gonna be on it. Probably right around the same time this comes out. But we were talking, she and I have over 25 year periods, served on different boards together, and really wanted to get Michelle's input, because she's one of those super, super board members that if everything fell on her lap, she could get it done. And a lot of times when you're working with a volunteer board, and she was like, I was lucky, the guys that I work with, they sort of trained us. In the beginning, they said, Look, you're going to be involved in this. And it's not just something to put on your resume. But you know, there's actually things that you have to do. And it's not always the fun stuff. It's someone's got to make the the reservations for the restaurant, or do the pre tour or the name tags, mine was always named tags, when I worked for somebody else, because we had somebody in the office that could do name tags, and all I had to do was hand off the spreadsheet to the office. And then before I left for the event, they'd hand me a box of name tags, and it was kind of it was a done for you service names as it doesn't seem like a big deal. But when that wasn't done, you know, you're either writing it on Sharpies, because people got there. And you know, which is a great way to do it. But it just kind of made the events it added a little bit to the value of people got there were the register here your name tags are there. And and it doesn't seem like a big deal. But it's so important to be able to delegate. And she's involved She's executive director now with with the new organization. And she said, It's like night and day working with this group of board members, because every single person, if they commit to something, then meaning when they meet a week later, she said it's almost 100%, it's done. She said it used to be because sometimes you lead a group of volunteers, and people say they raise their hand say, Yeah, I'm gonna do that. And he, for me, that's kind of a given. But But that's one of the things of attunement, that I just I was taught by mentors when I was too young, to know the difference or like, look, it's not difficult, it's simple. But if you make a commitment, we're counting on it. We're not going to come next week. And think like, he said, You were going to do x and you didn't, was also a little bit in the spirit of the Padilla town athlete. It's not like 100% Perfection. But when, you know, when when there is a commitment that was made, and it didn't happen, it's like, Hey, I did commit to that. I did it didn't happen. How's that gonna affect the group? And how do I get current right now. And in making an app, you know, what's the shortest period of time if I can, can fulfill that commitment in an hour, or whatever, but take responsibility make it happen. It was really hard. And it was fun. Because the one you see, not one person has to do all the work. And that's what I mean, as a community, when you create something that's a resource to the community that's self generating, when everybody is making their commitments, and in keeping their agreements, it creates the synergy and it's fun, it's fun to be involved in. And it's part of I want to talk more about networking is not working in the in the end of it, but I'm looking for for synergy, and relationships. And then and then the other thing is flex and flow. I'll say a little bit more about that later, too. But flex and flow in relationships. And app is when you're when you're in a group of leaders, you know, there's this tendency for, or at least, this is what I've noticed, in my experience, like some people are an expert in something or you get just certain personalities that are Taipei's, and they want to take over everything. And I mean, I kind of I have been more self aware hit but I have that natural, you know, my natural abilities like Well, I'm just gonna take over do it all. But in when you get in those and so everybody who's in that's what I loved about this connecting on a board. And you know, there's other boards that I'm involved in now, but it's such a group of high level people that I always feel like I want to elevate my game to their level. And so so it's a motivation. And even in our business, this this flex and flow with the idea is, is is just because I'm the leader doesn't mean I have to take over in every situation like a great example in our businesses, some of our clients are because of the resources they have or the teams they have. If they have their own engineering department. They're better at stuff than we are at that certain part of life. We can do the whole picture. And some of the relationships, you know, I've developed over the years, we didn't really, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, we didn't really have a strong engineering department. But I met with clients who they wanted to do their own drawers, like there was kind of they're passionate, they learn CAD in college or the ticket design class. I'm working with somebody right now. And, you know, the way he does it, he's got a system, I kind of stole it from him, he uses a felt tip pen, and he just takes like an old blueprint. And then he just draws with a like a Sharpie, like, this is how the layouts because he kind of has the flow in his mind. And so now I can take that and give it to an engineer, but like, I'm usually the one who does the Sharpie because I go and I ask all the questions, and I say, okay, based on what you told me, You're gonna do this, do this, do this. And so I let them take over. But I think a lot of companies that deal with what we do this, like, well, our engineering is gonna take over, we're gonna take care of all this, and it really creates more work for us. And then the end result, the product, the end result, it's not as good because you could have had somebody gifted and talented doing it with their passions, their desire. And so that flex and flow, and kind of a holistic paradigm, everything, you know, why do the archetypes thing why have? You know, why do you attunement? It's because, you know, I feel like I'm more in tune to those opportunities, and I don't feel threatened. You know, the greatest thing for me is I can just let you can facilitate, and you find everybody else is doing it, and you're like, Well, hey, wait a minute, I'm just in the way, you know, which, like, a good leader is, that's how it works. And then, um, I think I've been in meetings where people feel threatened like that they need to take over this part of the project. And so to me flux and flow. And
Jeremy Weisz 21:52
that's how it happens. And that that kind of goes into the community part. Right. So the next part that we'll be discussing the integral contributions community and
Mark Hiddleson 22:02
you for this one,
Jeremy Weisz 22:06
we were thinking about the hedonist archetype.
Mark Hiddleson 22:09
Yeah. So he doesn't start to type is one that I chose. It's a, it's one of my favorites. And any, the other people that know me, is like, I like to have a good time, you know, in my ecology of values, our number one rules enjoy the ride. And if it's the number one rule, why is it number seven on the list? Well, because that's funny. I just want to so you know, in life should be there's enough suffering in life that everybody's gonna get their fair share. And, you know, for me, I chose that archetype. One because I really think it's important. And then another, the, so that's the good part of the heat in this right is, is finding silver lining in the cloud. I mean, there's a lot of things about, you know, having fun, like I have fun pulling weeds, just because it's something that has to be done. They were teasing me this morning in the meeting. Because I think I've shared this story with taking out the garbage is one of the things I've just taken pride in at our house, I used to used to be a grind with my kids, like you guys are taking out the trash need to learn the plausibility of the dead. And now I've just started doing it. And we only have one more son at home. And whenever because we had a rule when I was doing this, like it's your guy's job. And if you need help, you can ask me for help. And so I just kind of reversed it. I said, you know, I'm going to do and then when I want help, I'm gonna ask for help. Well, last week, we have the garbage. We used to do it the night before, and our garbage guy usually comes at like nine in the morning. Well, he shows up at 730 and it's a yard waste. And my wife is like totally, you know, hers and she spends time there yard or yard is like, you know, I was like a resort. Everything's perfect. But she has two yard waste Recycling's and that we've had for like, we got one for the neighbor as a favor, and she goes well, when they're done with it. We're just keeping it. So we hear the beep, beep beep The guy back and up and he passes our house. And then it's like, did you take out the garbage? Is it No. And so she starts going through, you know, all this stuff. There's two of them for whatever things so I run outside. And my youngest son just got out of bed. He's laughing at me, but I'm in like flip flops, grab the garbage can and I'm chasing garbage down the street and going Hey, way and the guy's not waiting. He keeps going and going and going. I'm like running and then there's neighbors. I sunset everybody came out of their house with the there was a few people out of their house and they were like cheering me on. And they're like trying to stop the garbage trucks really loud. And I caught this thing On my ankle, they really hurt and it flooded and full of some of the stuff I love. And I'm like, still running is like, this is my job, I take pride in it, you know. And then like halfway down the street, I wanted to quit because like, this looks really stupid. But I made it to the neighbors finally got the guy to slow down, and then I did it. And then when he did it, everybody cheered. But, I mean, that started out as a story about hedonism being like, I would find pleasure in stuff that just, I mean, it has to be done. So you have a choice, you know, and so for me, and that's kind of how it bit me. And then my sons worked for me, and it came up in the company meeting this morning about that. So the heating is also as the shadow the reason I, I chose this one is that, you know, I've experienced the shadow side of that. And we talked a little bit more when we were talking about the the archetypal graph, that if you just follow the pleasures of your body in, you know, whether it's alcohol or sex, I mean, sex is probably one of the most powerful ones. But if you're constantly just seeking pleasure, over time, the value goes down. And so they're the shadow side of the hedonist is just focusing too much on pleasure, and not really getting the big picture. And, you know, connecting to, to your highest potential, you know, if if you get caught in the hedonist archetype, then he could be doing you could doing the right things for the wrong reasons, doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. And and I've, you know, I'm younger and younger days, and even, you know, sometimes I can bite me in the ass. And so it's one of the reasons I chose to work with that archetype. Because I think the good sides of it, they're, they're there, I can remember going to an event in it was in Park City, we do a we do a skiing event with a group that I'm involved with every year. It's like the end of January 1 part of February. And I was the last few years I've always done a sober January. Well, those scheme things like it's almost a given, if you're gonna skate, you have to drink afterwards. Because you're sober or anything or, and I remember walking in, we were a little late. And when I walked in the door, you could see everybody got excited, like, Oh, this guy's here. We're gonna Oh, and even like the guy that answered the door, he didn't know me. He's like, Oh, yeah, he goes, I heard you were coming. He goes, I guess now the party can really start, you know, I was thinking, and I didn't say and I never do this, if I'm doing something like I didn't say like, Oh, hey, I'm, I'm doing the sober January or something like that. I just, I just said, Yeah, you're right, man. Like, we're gonna have a good time. I went right to the bar, I started making myself a Diet Coke, I cut up a line, like I'm doing it the right way. And I just, I do those kinds of things. Because of, if the, if the, if I let the hedonist take over, then I'm going to end out, you know, living in a tent with some of these guys out by the river. But I still like to have a good time, you know? And this, this community and the hedonist. For me, I take a lot of pleasure in, in connecting to the higher or deeper aspects of myself, you know, and being able I think that's and the communities that I've been lucky to be involved in and I want to get into some of those it's a group of people who really desire to serve either the local community or the global community and it's by reaching for you know, reaching for our highest aspirations or tapping into our highest you know, potential and you know, becomes a community because we all take pleasure and in that scheme thing, it's a bunch of leaders that they get together and there's no official business agenda it's not organized one of my friends that else that we put these on Chris Murphy, we call it poolside logistics one on one is that when we go to a networking event or an industry event or a training was usually more information or more learning that happens out at the pool or in this case, it's scheme and then we do the pool and skeins here because there's a hot tub that's the other thing you wonder scheme that has to be drinking massively hot tub so that year, I only did the hot tub and drinking diet coats. And you know, I don't believe in coincidences have said that before. I don't want to do you believe in coincidences? Jeremy. Um,
Jeremy Weisz 29:49
I mean, if you asked me I was funny because I typically I think things happen, you know, for certain reasons. And I was just telling a story to someone earlier, who we work with, and they help tire shops, do marketing. And I was driving down to Indianapolis for a conference and my I got a flat tire, my tire was shredded. And I was at the side of the road and waiting for triple A to take me to a tire shop. And I was like, maybe, maybe I'm supposed to get these people a client, you know. And so I texted the guy a picture of my tire. And I'm like, and they had great services tire shop, I go, maybe this is a company that you're supposed to work with or something like that. Yeah. So that you're like, Well, I appreciate you thinking of me in this time where you're stranded for hours at the side of the road. But that's kind of how I thought about it. You know, we try to make him for me to try and make meaning out of
Mark Hiddleson 30:58
things. Yeah, so he chose to
Jeremy Weisz 31:02
do so to answer your question short, in short, no, I don't I think that certain things happen for reasons.
Mark Hiddleson 31:10
And yeah. So you do believe in coincidences that? No, I
Jeremy Weisz 31:15
don't. I think things happen for specific reasons.
Mark Hiddleson 31:19
Yeah, it is, um, but I'm having fun with it. Because it that really means you do believe in coincidence, like the words can get messed up. And that's why I always like to say I don't believe in coincidences, which means I believe in coincidences, I believe that there's a significant, you know, or you could say there are I mean, what are you really ever saying there are no coincidences, and that's why I always said I don't believe in coincidences, but I love to get the challenge going with the word but that was another thing and the archetypes is something that Carl Jung was talking about in the synchronicity was kind of Carl Jung has kind of a great story because he starts out he's like, super scientific, and exploring the unconscious, which is almost impossible to explore. So that's what he's a pioneer of Freud. They basically discovered it in this like, Well, how do we go in and start mining? This, you know, how do you work with since subconscious, so powerful part of human nature? How do we work with it, and one of his last names was on synchronicity, and it was controversial. And there are you know, so people, it's almost like freewill. It's like the battle between free will and determinism mean. So many things are predetermined, you look at the potentiality of all you know, being a human as a potential it's, it's this field. And then that's why community I'm gonna tie this back to community in a minute, but when he told this tire story, it reminds me of, we had a and this was a story. I wanted to tell him one of the things but I was with a client one time and we were, we were doing one of these. All I know, because it was the last time I was at a mastermind, the last time you and I met, I was doing a mastermind and it was around a football game. And a lot of the guys have got this group of guys that they're involved in, you know, logistics or whatever their clients their, you know, resources, and we tried to meet up. This guy was based out of Seattle, but we were doing a lot of projects for Pepsi in Northern California when Pepsi, PepsiCo bought out Sobey. And so they needed a ton of racking because Sony's product was totally different. Like you can't stack bottles of stuff, and they had an energy drink and there was all this stuff. So we set up all these Pepsi's that there was a football game in Seattle. And so we all kind of rallied around that. Dwayne was up there, I was gonna be there. And he said, Well, you guys, there was a group of us flying in. And then he was there. He said, I'll pick you guys up at the airport. So this is a great, you know, when when is community we're all sharing resources. Will he picks us up in his minivan? And he's got insider parking and everything's like, Yeah, this is great. Dwayne's just gonna pick us up the airport, and he's so we're in these back neighborhoods. In Seattle. I always thought I can think of different cities obviously like Seattle only like clean Perfect, good, pristine neighborhoods will close to the Husky this time the Seahawks were playing the Husky Stadium and we're driving around I'm like, these bad things could happen in this neighborhood. And he was getting kind of nervous. And it did a really dumb move. It's funny because everybody's in the car. And he hit the curb was tired and he popped the tire. And I was like, oh man and so we're kind of like we had extra time and everything because all these people are logistics guys. So they want to you know have enough time to change to flat tire before we give the game. So it's the thing about Seattle in October, November whenever there it was pouring down rain. So like we're in this questionable area, and this is before, like, well, we didn't have Google Maps or anything like this. I mean, this was a while ago. And, and so we're just like wondering what we're going to do. So people just started jumping out, we started, you know, we're like, well, no matter what happens, somebody's gonna have to take this tire off. So somebody took the tire off. And then suddenly, like, we're like, well, let's just go look for a tire shop, there has to be a tire shop somewhere. So all these guys were taking turns rolling this tire through the rain. Everybody's laughing and wet. But we're like, we're all kind of working together for a common goal. And we were having fun at it. Right? And it's like, it was like kids playing in the rain with a tire. It's like, we never get this opportunity. And then it created. Like I can't I'm gonna have to call Dwayne Eichelberger on this he works for a different companies haven't done business in years. But one of my best friends that we see each other all the time, every once in a while that story will come up, it's like, yeah, we got a flat tire, we will that thing, and we, I think we will have maybe three box and went right to a tire shop. Right? So I was like, you know, this, it was meant to be, right, we had this could
Jeremy Weisz 36:14
have been an uneventful parking situations that it's a great story to tell.
Mark Hiddleson 36:20
It's in relationship. And those relationships he knows probably been, I think, I don't even think got started my company. I was working for another company when we did that. And so that means over 17 years ago, like it called Dwayne today, we thought we'd be laughing about it. And so I look at those opportunities. And you know, synchronicity, it's a kind of little out there, whoo, whoo. And the truth isn't, you know, nobody's ever really going to, you know, figure it out. But, you know, I think if you have a choice, and there was another author that ever so everybody kind of wrote off yelling at the ends, like, well, he started talking about synchronously, and that's when he started to lose it. And then they published a lot of his book, which was like his personal journal, which are, you know, like, a lot of this stuff wasn't even written for public. This is just like his personal stuff that I helped See, he lost a cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs synchronously. Not a lot of really good scientists have tried to go back. And I read this book called The Case of the Midwife Toad, as written by Arthur Koestler, he's one of the inventors of holistic philosophy Come on, and none of the word Hold on, which you know that these chapters in this book are like, hold on, which everything is kind of a part whole idea that, you know, a cell is a whole cell, but it's part of, you know, an Oregon, but a cell is a whole by itself, but it's a part whole. And there's all these part whole relationships, and which goes back to community because there's our image of being separate, we're really not separate. We're part of a community. I mean, the one human couldn't exist on their own. But at the end of that book, the case the case of the midwife, Toad, which is an awesome book, it's written as a novel, but it's, it's kind of about science. And it's about how the politics of science and how people can take different ideas with this guy basically, was breeding toads. And because they were, they're identical, they're salamanders. I call it a tiller. But there were ones that bread and water. And they had these extra little hooks for breeding of the males. And there was the exact same Toad was dry land. And this guy was like a masterful breeder of reptiles. And so he was trying to prove that he put the dirt ones in water that eventually they would grow the hooks. And people like, oh, that's that's like survival of the fittest. That's like Darwinism, but it really isn't. It's the complete opposite of that, like Darwinism says like the ones who are the ones are the hooks are going to survive, and the ones that don't are all going to die. This guy had a theory that like generation through generation through generation, that these tools and he did it within like five generations, he would breed these, these tools, and then he got it. But it was super controversial, because nobody wanted that to come out. So I don't want to be a spoiler because it's a great book. You gotta read the book of how of how it turns out. But the end that same guy that scientists who was an excellent breeder, he was infatuated with this idea of Kwanzaa. So he actually recorded it. And then there's people who do that, because he would take things like he went to a concert. And his, his friend got they got C eight. And then he got for the coat, check his coat and hat. He got ADA got C Ada and the coach I ADA. And he's like, Well, that that can't be, that can't be a coincidence. And so the next night they went to a different theater, saying guys and two guys went to a different theater. They got different seats, and the guy got the same seat Eat in the hat check on the second one. So
Jeremy Weisz 40:04
let's play those for the lotto those numbers?
Mark Hiddleson 40:08
Because this was an early
Jeremy Weisz 40:09
sign, I'm playing 8862 Yeah.
Mark Hiddleson 40:13
And so for me, you know, I'm like, do I choose to look at it? You know, and I've had a few and it's funny the more so in Carl Jung's defense, I mean, there is a if you start paying attention to coincidences, they're going to start happening more and more, because you see what you're looking for. And that's another thing about humans, you're gonna see, if you're looking for problems, you're gonna find problems, or you're looking for answers, you can find answers. If you're looking for coincidences, you're gonna find coincidences, but I've had a I went too early. I'm going to share a few I wasn't going to do this. But But this has to do with sharing passions, because I'm kind of passionate about those coincidences. What's you what you do with it? Right? I mean, you took that and you're creating a referral from another client you're creating, you're investing in that relationship for you. And then you're giving them an opportunity. I mean, that's like dropping the pebble in the pond and having it spread. Because you're looking at it and it's almost it's a lemons into lemonade, too. Right. It's, it's not just a coincidence. You're saying, hey, something is a pain in the ass. The flat tire would flat tire. Like you'd think, like, there aren't very many worse things that you just weren't planning. Right. And you were probably going somewhere. You weren't just driving around, right? Like, eager had somewhere
Jeremy Weisz 41:31
to go down the highway? Yeah, it wasn't, wasn't a fun situation.
Mark Hiddleson 41:35
Enjoy ride like, oh, yeah, I mean, even like, but one of the things that my bicycle, there's time I want, I want to go ride my bike, because there's a time of year where there's a lot of goat thistles and then your chance, you're gonna get a flat tire pretty high. And it's like, I'll just stay home and go for a walk. But this idea of coincidences, I had a really powerful in the last year went to this, it was a business retreat, breakthrough. And, you know, five day thing, and the facilitator was really gifted, gifted woman and, and I'm, like, you know, I want to stay in touch over the long term, because I want to go and get and share feedback, like, I'm gonna take this, I'm gonna use this in my personal growth, and I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna, it had a lot to do with reaching out and curious some of those relationships. We talked about my relationship with my aunt last time, and it was really, you know, it was a huge opening for me. So I said, I want to connect on LinkedIn. And so I sent her an invitation. And at that time, I was her 440/4 contact, and she was my 444 contacts. So I was like, whoa, this was my mind was already blown already. And I was in a different state, you know, like, you go to a Tony Robbins thing or, or after a podcast, or you're in a state change, like, I feel differently. I just, like, I feel like I've done lot of fear goes away. And that's a lot of thing with the archetypes and the thing. We talked about procrastination and everything, when would fear just completely drops. And he feel almost invincible. You know, it's, it's something like luckily, it goes away, because we're not invincible. But I thought that was really cool. Well, the other thing is, in our family, we have this thing. So repeating numbers all mean something differently. And so I looked up, what is 444? Because I don't have them all memorized, but I know. And the 444 is guardian angel. And I was like, wow, you know, what, the insights, I'm gonna get just made sense that, that 444 number. And so, you know, do I know if there's significance there or not? No, but I chose to do it, I chose to remember it, it actually makes that we as humans, were meaning makers, right. So I made that more meaningful to have a positive reason to try to make more of a positive impact on the on our community. So my partner,
Jeremy Weisz 44:06
you know, community is is gathering and I know you have a certain structure to meetings or gatherings. I'd love for you to walk us through that.
Mark Hiddleson 44:17
Yeah, the other thing is, I forgot to say the quote about community that a tick not Han is a like a Vietnamese Buddhist and it's funny um I don't talk about much about faith or what I am or what anyone else but I'm a Christian, but I love the Buddhist quotes. And I've studied Buddhist philosophy and like, I learned meditation from a lot of people who were in the call it Western approaches to the meditation, but they, you know, they had Christian faith, but they use Buddhist techniques. So I think it's I love it's like a cross, cross Cultural study, which I think you know, kind of makes it holistic, it makes it integral. And they really don't contradict each other, you know, they feed each other but the and I meant to ask my pastor if there's, there's something parallel to this and Christianity, but tick, not Han, said, the next Buddha is going to be a song called, which is a sangha is, is a community. So the thing is, the next Buddha is it's not going to be a person, it's going to be a group of people. So that invitation that I talked about to, to finding our, or searching or going for our highest, deepest aspirations and potential, it really is it's going to happen, it's going to happen in a group. And I started getting involved in other people's groups recently, just to bring more freshness to mind. But I have a structure. And we use this in masterminds or groups that we usually meet either either once a week, or every other week. And it's one of those things that I'm against structure. So I have a structure. Because if you have a structure, you don't have to worry about the structure. That's That's the paradox. But the first part of each mean is five minutes of arriving, it's just getting to get in the space, with with the intention, whatever you brought, because this, you know, this attunement process is about aligning your attention with your, you know, your actions and, and making it happen. But letting go of any judgments, because it's as fun when you start. That's the first thing I was like, this room sucks, why aren't there more pillows last week they had refreshment? It's such an automatic part, why is he wearing that way she were last night, I wonder who's going to be first. So just kind of letting this letting the judgment go and just start to kind of linger in the moment. And then five minutes of introduction to a ritual. So this is kind of a ritual what we've talked about, maybe it's a poem, I've read poems with you. And, and we'll just sit down in, and I'll do these in 12 weeks, because I like to do it as a project, where if somebody comes in, they're trying to get to a certain, you know, like publishing a book is a project. That's one thing where you do need a lot of group input group. And it is it's like group therapy, it all is. And this is, you know, when you share with other people, you hear their stories. And so in groups, one to four, I'll usually do a practice. But then as it gets, and maybe even I start at the center, where I've had people in week two, it's like, they do a practice something either I've done before, I'm not familiar with. And then I'll say, Hey, would you mind leaving the five minute practice and it could be a meditation, it could be a chant, it could be silence, it could be even just getting into dyads. And sharing ideas. I mean, there's there's a list is limit list of the kinds of practice that you could do. I mean, my, my go twos are either the easy one, even think the easy one is just the silence, like, okay, let's just set the timer and have silence for five minutes. Well, that's actually the hardest one. It's better if I can say, okay, visualize a spiral spiral. And as you're breathing in, visualize a spiral going counterclockwise towards the Earth. And as you're breathing out, clockwise, towards the ground, you know, and then just do if you give somebody you know, something to think of, or, you know, a visualization, easier, easier than the, the silence, and then at the end, it's just like a three minute, every go around the group, and it's the biggest group I've ever had is like, 10, it's great for about six people, three to six people, it's really nice. Because, you know, if you have six people, and everybody takes three minutes, that's 18 minutes, we'll just going to be hard to have a half hour meeting, if at Madison is going to be the recap. So we were a little bit flexible on the time, but times respected. I mean, people don't one of the most important things about this and delegating is that you get one minute that you just only use one minute. And that's also a skill that in and we do this is how I do my company meetings. I mean, we it's almost the exact same structure is that at the end, you know, just people that that last time is how did you integrate this? How does this work for you? How are you going to put this into practice? And put it on the field? How do we take it from being in our heads to taking it out on the field?
Jeremy Weisz 49:48
Yeah, that makes sense. There's the arriving part. There's the kind of thinking about not making judgments, having intention with the meeting and then introduction practice of five And then the some five minute practice, like you said with visualization, breathing, and then kind of a three minute recap for people and then kind of a journeying, you also talk about practices of conscious accountability.
Mark Hiddleson 50:18
So in this process would kind of go in with, with the intention of creating clarity. So sometimes in the practice things, things don't make sense. Or your people bring things up. And it's not clear and, you know, clearly defining expectations. And that's actually one of the one of the hardest things because, you know, I say, Do you believe in coincidences, it means one thing to 1% means something, something else. Opening my engagement, and it can be, I joined a few of these groups recently, like I said, I've practiced with them before, and I came back. And and it was good, it really felt like home. But they're asking you like, you don't just go in these groups and not participate. I mean, part of everybody the idea is like everyone who comes to this group, and it's the same thing if if you're in a board, and that's why these kinds of practices are really good when when you're engaging with a board, or a group of people that and I learned all this at JFK, and there's an energy there's a song right now big, you know, the song, big energy by lotto. Have you heard that song? Be the energy? Well, I don't know all the words, my kids have explained it. But I love that. It's a Mariah Carey remix. But I was thinking, the JFK energy, it was like a JFK, JFK energy. And it when everybody contributes, even if it's awkward, it's like, there's something in I was nervous to make a contribution. And then fear dropped, because I was like, Well, I've been in this before, like, there's nowhere to hide, which is a good thing. Because you get it. And then that's kind of part of nailing it, which is, is the other the seven noticing. And that's kind of part of the judgment, noticing what comes up noticing, you know, God, why was I afraid to say anything in but I noticed that exchanging feedback, it's usually in the form of, you know, the way I hear it, you know, it's never given advice, like none of these ever say, Give somebody else's idea of how they should do it. And then one of the most important things is trying again, because a lot of times in a group, like if you don't nail it, it doesn't really matter. Because you're like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna do this, we got 12 weeks, but we're gonna try again. I mean, if we fail at any one of these, you know, clarity, nailing and noticing it exchanging feedback, claiming it is the other one is that that's kind of what the archetypes is. It's claiming the behavior like this isn't just the way that I turned out to be. I chose you know, I chose to be make coincidences. Significant. I chose the hero archetype, I chose the hedonist archetype. And so it's a it puts you in a position, you know, when you when you're in groups like this is such a high level, you know, the seven practices of concepts of accountability. And that was the refreshing thing. What Michele told me is like most people aren't operating that that level of accountability. The team at Rise25 definitely does. But that's one of the reasons I like working with you is because it puts us in a position to succeed and elevate and distinguish ourselves. And then I like to use the term generate excellence, everywhere you turn. Love as the as the seventh practice, Mark,
Jeremy Weisz 53:50
I want to first thank you everyone, check out more episodes of the podcast, and this one was great integral contribution to community and a hedonist archetype. Listen to the other episodes about the archetypes and how that kind of relates to personal practice in business practice and check out specialracks.com
Mark Hiddleson 54:08
Thanks, Mark. Thank you, Jeremy. This is an absolute blast. This is what I mean by hedonist. Fun. Thank you for your energy.
Intro 54:21
Thanks for listening to The Tao of Pizza Podcast. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
Commentaires