65: Mark Struczewski aka Mr. Productivity

Greg Mills: Our guest today is on a mission to help a hundred billion solar entrepreneurs conquer overwhelmed by 2032. In addition to being a productivity expert, he's the host of the March cheki podcast and an online trainer. You can find out more about connecting with him and his mission to create confident leaders at Mr.

Greg Mills: productivity.com without further ado, mark. Craig.

Mark Struczewski: Thank you for the show. I'm excited to be

Greg Mills: here. I'm excited. You're here too. Now, did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all? Did anybody in your family have their own business?

Mark Struczewski: No, sir, I'm an only child. My mother worked like secretarial type jobs throughout her life.

Mark Struczewski: As I was going to school, she was doing the mom thing. My dad was a machinist at a steel factory. And when I say machinist, I don't mean that he got a piece of bar stock. And put it in the NEC machine, press 1, 2, 3, 4, and sat down and read a book. My dad could read blueprint and I'm really proud of what my dad he's so smart.

Mark Struczewski: And he's taught me a whole bunch about how to live life.

Greg Mills: That sounds like you had a good upbringing and a good family. I did. So now, how did you get your entrepreneurial start? So to speak?

Mark Struczewski: I was fired back on July. I don't know the date, but July, 2005, I was fired.

Mark Struczewski: I think it was time for me to go a long time ago. But I was like, you know, you get really comfortable, you get so many vacation days and you get benefits and all this stuff. And I really didn't like the job. And I think it took me getting fired. I didn't do anything really bad, like embezzle or, you know, something like that.

Mark Struczewski: But I think it was mama bird kicking me out of the nest and I didn't land on my back, you know, but kinda like a cat. I kinda landed on. Feet. And I'm like, okay, now what happens? But I was able to figure out what to do. I made a ton of mistakes along the way, but I always stayed on my feet, which is always a good thing.

Greg Mills: Now, what were you doing prior to

Mark Struczewski: this? My technical term at the last job was inventory control coordinator. So basically what I would do is for a hospital and there, the system would say there'd be 100. X on the shelf. The system said 95. I would've had to find out what happened to the five. And it was really a boring and tedious job because, you know, you have all these order pickers and stuff like that.

Mark Struczewski: I don't know what happened to the other five Xes. I have no idea. So I didn't, I was in, in inventory management for about 12 years. It didn't like it at all. It was not glamorous, but it paid the bills as they.

Greg Mills: So why the name Mr. Productivity?

Mark Struczewski: Well, I wish I could say.

Mark Struczewski: I came up with that name myself, but that would be a lie. So there's this gentleman named Jeff Young on LinkedIn and he followed me and started seeing all my posts. He goes, you know, you should call yourself Mr. Productivity. And he used the hashtag Mr. Productivity. And I'm like, Is it, can I use that? Is it etiquette?

Mark Struczewski: Can I take it and goes? Sure. And then I realized that I started being guest on shows like yours, that telling people to go to mark St. chesky.com. If you're not from Poland, you don't have a prayer going there. So I took the Mr. productivity.com and it gotta redirect. So when I'm on a show like yours and someone's out walking the dog or on their plane or whatever the case may be.

Mark Struczewski: If I say Mr. productivity.com, if they don't go to Mr. It's not Mr. Productivity, it's the word spelled out. It takes you to marks St. chelsea.com. So when I see people in public from the stage, whatever that I always tell 'em Mr. productivity.com, because then they can go, oh, I can get there. But mark chesky.com.

Mark Struczewski: I can't. And so I just started branding myself as Mr. Productivity. Most of the things I talk about are how to be more productive. Okay.

Greg Mills: Now, how did you get into productivity? You know, how did you transition, I guess be a better word or better phrase?

Mark Struczewski: Question, you know, I've been asked this question a lot and I have to give credit to my mom and dad.

Mark Struczewski: My mom passed away in June of 2022 from Alzheimer's and I was raised in a very structured home. So I used to come home from school at three 30. Mom wouldn't come home until like five dad would be home about five 30. Before they came home. I had to have my homework done. I had to have my chores done, which included set in the kitchen table.

Mark Struczewski: I mean, there was no laziness. A lot of my parents' house. Saturday mornings was chore time you, I had to do chore, clean my rooms, whatever the case may be, mow the lawn when I was old enough. And so I give credit to my parents to being so productive. I did not choose being Mr. Productivity. What happened was after I got fired, I was.

Mark Struczewski: Call with a coach. And I found out that I loved teaching and speaking, but I didn't know what my topic should be. And he says, well, why don't you talk about productivity? And I remember saying to him, I don't know where that came from, but why would you say that? And he goes, I know a lot of people and you are so naturally productive.

Mark Struczewski: You should share your gift with the world and that's sort of what happened.

Greg Mills: Okay. So after that call and you made the decision to share your gift, what were your next

Mark Struczewski: steps? I then started making a whole bunch of mistakes. So I felt victim and I say, victim, not that it's their fault. It's my fault to what I call the three CS coaches, conferences and courses.

Mark Struczewski: I just started spending thousands of dollars on any course, any coach, any conference to go to, and I didn't take time to go. Are they gonna be able to get me from a to B? And so I put our family into a financial binding because I, I. Careful the money. I just thought there was magic of spending money on coaches, courses, and conferences, and they're all good.

Mark Struczewski: The right ones, the right coaches, the right courses, the right conferences. You just can't spend money and expect that you're going to kill it. And now what I do before I spend any money down, my wife's not an entrepreneur. She sells cruises for a living. I ask her, I said, Hey, take a look at sales page.

Mark Struczewski: What do you think? And I will trust her opinion because she's not in my world and she'll come back and go, okay. I don't understand what is the point of this? Or why do you wanna do. And now it actually number one saves us money, but it also saves me time. Instead of investing in something that's gonna be utter waste of my time and money.

Mark Struczewski: I listen to my wife and if she doesn't get it, she just, I, cuz she knows a lot about the business. She doesn't help me in the business if she doesn't get it, she goes, I, I don't get it. I, and I will listen to that because if she doesn't get it, then. If the person on the sales page, doesn't clearly explain it to a non entrepreneur, like my wife, then I'm gonna listen to that voice of reason.

Greg Mills: Yeah. Sounds like you're lucky in that way that I am as well. Got we've both got a smart, you know, better half So now what, who do you consider your target market or your ideal customer?

Mark Struczewski: I have a heart for solo entrepreneurs. I am a solopreneur. I eventually wanna grow into having the team, but right now I'm not at that point yet because solo entrepreneurs are so overwhelmed.

Mark Struczewski: They have gotta be the CEO, the salesperson, the marketing department, the secretary the janitor. They gotta be everything. And they're so stressed. And so I want them. I love solo entrepreneurs because I'm like, there's a better way, even if you can't afford someone else right now, there's a better way than you running yourself into the early.

Greg Mills: Oh, mark. By the way, I've got this software package you'd really ought to be, you'd be interested in also, and there's a new online platform. It seems like you're always getting bombarded with, you know, new things that come up and it's not even shiny object syndrome anymore. It's just kind of object incoming syndrome.

Mark Struczewski: Yeah it's true because a matter of fact, I just made a short video, you know, cuz short videos. The rage, you know, they, no one wants anything but short videos. And the video said, you know what? I get asked this question all the time. What is the perfect calendar app? What is the perfect to do list app?

Mark Struczewski: What is the perfect notes app? What is this? The perfect productivity app. And I'm like the one you're gonna use. Seriously. I mean, don't worry about what's hot. Don't worry about what's trending. Don't worry about the pretty colors of the logo. Which one are you going to use? And it's gonna be different for everyone because so many people that come to me and they go, oh, he's Mr.

Mark Struczewski: Productivity. Surely he knows what the best productivity apps are. I'm like, I don't know you. I know what works for. And you Greg know what works for you, but for me to say, oh, you gotta use calendar app a and to do list app B and notes app C. I think that would be unfair to the person listening to this conversation.

Mark Struczewski: Or from me telling them from the stage or on my own podcast, you gotta figure out what you. Before you figure out what app you need to figure out what you need it to do for you see a lot of people, they just go right to the app store and they type in calendar and they just scroll that's a pretty app and they download it.

Mark Struczewski: But maybe if you take a couple minutes ahead and go what do I need this app to do for me? And then go look, but we don't do that. We go to the app store first and we're actually putting the cart before the horse.

Greg Mills: Yeah. Shoot first aim

Mark Struczewski: later. yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Greg Mills: So how did you kind of niche down and focus on helping people conquer overwhelm

Greg Mills: why not just productivity in general?

Mark Struczewski: You know, what's interesting is I took a course that I got vetted through my wife. I took a course. It was all about clarity. And listening to the words your prospects use and not a single one of my clients has ever come to me and says, mark, I wanna be more productive.

Mark Struczewski: What they kept saying is, oh my gosh, I'm so overwhelmed with my to-do list and my calendar. And I'm just, I don't have enough time in the day. And I said, isn't that interesting? They're not saying they wanna be more product. They wanna get out from under the weight of overwhelm. So I teach the same things in my courses, in my membership.

Mark Struczewski: It's the same thing. I just don't talk about productivity. I talk about overwhelm. So I change my tagline. I help people go from feeling overwhelmed and stressed out to feeling peace and joy. Now I teach the same concepts, but if I tell you like, this is really a true story, my wife and I were coming back from seeing my parents before my mom died.

Mark Struczewski: And I was in the car with the Uber driver and she goes, what do you do? I said, productivity expert. She just goes, oh, and that was the end of the conversation. But had I said, I help people go from overwhelmed and stressed to feeling peace of joy. Now she probably would've gone. Oh, really? Tell me more about that.

Mark Struczewski: So I'm learning, I'm an everyday student. I'm learning to speak the language of people who need my help. No one is gonna come to me and say, can you help me be more productive? They don't do productivity nerds like myself, talk like that. But the average human being doesn't talk like that.

Greg Mills: Yeah, I can understand that.

Greg Mills: So what are some of the common problems common. Symptoms associated with overwhelmed that you're seeing and how can you fix those or help people to fix those?

Mark Struczewski: The number one thing I see with people who are overwhelmed is they're trying to do too much.

Mark Struczewski: They're just going. And I have a guide that we can tell people how to get at the end of the show. But the first thing I tell people to do is stop because it sounds. Counter intelligent. But if you that's the wrong word, I can't think of the right word counter counterintuitive. Thank you.

Mark Struczewski: I, the word wasn't there. So what happens is you wanna keep on going when things, when the car is going off the rails or your, or the cars start running the gas, you wanna push the gas goes as far as you can, but what happens to you? Stop? I mean, literally stop. Get up from your computer, get off the zoom call, go outside, get some fresh air and just don't think about anything.

Mark Struczewski: Don't be on your phone. Just stop your brain goes, oh, and the brain goes, okay, now I can sort everything. And it only takes like five minutes. The problem is we keep going and going and going, and we think we're accomplishing something. But we're actually doing is we're actually causing our brain to start to really break down on us.

Mark Struczewski: And so the number one thing I tell people is you gotta stop and it's, you don't wanna. But you have to stop. And so if you don't stop, if you keep going, you're gonna have physical issues. You're gonna have mental issues because you have the stress and the overwhelm, and this is, it just builds on each other.

Mark Struczewski: It's just think about com the negative version of compound interest. It just grows and grows because you think, oh, if I just keep pushing to finish this project, I'll feel better. No, you won't. You'll get done and you'll feel horrible. Absolutely horrible, because you had all this stuff, just keep piling on.

Mark Struczewski: But if people don't want to do that, they just think, well, if I'm not doing anything, I'm not being productive. I said, no, that's not true when you're resting. Even for five minutes, you're allowing your brain to catch up.

Greg Mills: Yeah. I've heard a lot of other people say that, they get their best ideas when they, take a break, they go on vacation.

Greg Mills: They step away, there's always, the, an old anecdote about people coming up with the million dollar idea in the shower. Yeah, my shower, unfortunately does not work that way, I don't have that knob.

Mark Struczewski: Well, one of the things I've begun doing, I'm a daily runner. I've been running every day, at least one mile since August 29th, 2017.

Mark Struczewski: And one of the thing I start doing now is I run naked once a week. Now that doesn't mean I go without clothes. That means you go without headphones. So no podcast, no audio books, no music. And what I find on those days, I run naked. Number one, the bird's actually chirp and the wind makes a sound when that goes between, you know, through the leaves.

Mark Struczewski: But I actually, because I'm on autopilot running, you know, I'm not thinking about one foot in front of the other. My brain could just go, wow. And I get a lot of great ideas, which is a disadvantage because. I have nothing to write with. So what I do is I get, I think I'm a one, I'm a run Walker. So like I run a mile and I walk for a 10th a mile.

Mark Struczewski: And so hopefully by the time I get to my walk break, I'll remember to, you know, get on my apple, watch and say, Hey, you know, make a note or something like that. But yeah, in the shower, just going out in the backyard, and not being on your phone and not talking to anyone, just sitting quietly, the, your brain will give you some, your ideas already there, but the problem is you're so busy.

Mark Struczewski: You can't, the ideas can't get through. So just getting silent. And I know we live in a 24 7, 365 world. Everything's always on, I mean, I'm old enough to remember when. You know, midnight, the national Anthem played and TV stations went off. There's only four TV stations. And I remember when there's only ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS.

Mark Struczewski: So this is before Fox. That's how old I am. I'm 57. And I remember that now you can watch something any hour of the day, you can binge watch shows and literally waste your life. So, yeah.

Greg Mills: Yeah. We're roughly the same age, so it seems like we've made improvements, but it really hasn't improved a quality of life.

Greg Mills: It's just made things happen at an exponentially faster rate.

Mark Struczewski: Yeah. And FOMO is real FOMO. People are so scared of missing something. I've gotta check TikTok. I gotta check Instagram. I gotta check LinkedIn. I'm. I grew up when there was no cell phones when no one had a computer in their home. I remember that.

Mark Struczewski: And you know, you either watch the evening news, you get the morning paper, but now if God forbid a plane crashes at 1204, we want pitchers and video at 1205. It's like really. I mean, we and FOMO is so debilitating because you're not doing what you need to do to build your business or your brand or promote your cause.

Mark Struczewski: You're so sucked into the world of social media, cuz you wanna know what everyone does on this plan at 24, 7,365. I'm like what kind of life is that?

Greg Mills: Yeah, exactly. Now I think that maybe. At some point in human history, having more information was a good thing, but I think we've almost reached peak information saturation and we're not focusing on the really important stuff.

Greg Mills: Oh, what are the Kardashians

Mark Struczewski: doing? exactly it. It's. We have so much information that even if the information stopped right now and you are born today, And you live to a hundred, you couldn't consume everything that's on the internet. So what I encourage people to do is. Like I have the saying stay informed, not obsessed.

Mark Struczewski: Okay. So you should know. Oh, COVID what's COVID you should know what COVID is. Okay. You should know what climate change is, but you should know about everything that happened with those two topics. Okay. You need to figure out how you can serve the world. I love how Steve jobs said, we all need to put a dent in the universe.

Mark Struczewski: And so I challenged the listener. How are you denting the. I can promise you if you're watching everything that Kardashians are doing, you're not making the dent. Okay. What are you doing that is gonna make a dent? Steve jobs created apple. What are you doing? And a lot of people, they pick up their phones like, oh yeah, I'm making dent, Uber, you're on your phone.

Mark Struczewski: And speaking of phones, one of the thing, I'll just go into this hope. It's okay. When I'm with somebody, if you pick up your phone, I stop talking. It's like those go ahead. I'm like no. You're focused on your device. When you put your device down, then I'll talk to you. So when I have a conversation with the people, I don't have my device, it's in my pocket.

Mark Struczewski: I, again, that's FOMO. Why you on your phone? You and I are talking face to face. What's so important on your phone. Oh, I gotta check the score. Why? You own the team? Like, what do you own the team? Why are you checking the score? It doesn't matter. I mean, isn't that important to you? Why did you wanna have a conversation with me?

Mark Struczewski: And I think more and more people should do this. How many times you been in the restaurant? And there's two people sitting across the table and there's three on their phones. Like really? Yeah. Why don't text you get, why don't you yeah. Just get separate boosts then and text each other. I mean, I don't get it.

Greg Mills: Going back to what you had just said you really ought to trademark some of those, you making a dent in the universe and also stay informed, not obsessed. I believe. can be a, yeah.

Mark Struczewski: Well, that's that one's mine. The da the universe is Steve jobs. So I can't, he said that and he's passed away.

Mark Struczewski: But yeah, so he's not gonna trademark, that be true? I may get some pushback from Tim cook and apple. Yeah. But you know, I also tell people, you know, tell your time where to go, instead of wondering where it went. And that means plan. A lot of people go well, I don't know what I'm gonna do tomorrow.

Mark Struczewski: I'm like, ah, I don't know what you're gonna do tomorrow. I mean, here's the thing. If you don't tell your time where to go, you're gonna spend all day in TikTok tomorrow. Yeah. That's the truth. And so even if your plan is not correct, just put something there. And like another one I have is complexity as a gateway of procrastination.

Mark Struczewski: I'm a guy, keep things as simple as possible. I know that if something as complex, you're gonna like. I'll do it later and you'll never get to it. So break things down as simple as you can. So, yeah, I don't know if I'll trademark it, but I do say those things an awful lot. Okay.

Greg Mills: I was gonna ask you about, two or three tips that you could provide, to combat overwhelm and productivity, but the two of 'em you, you mentioned plan and keep it simple. Stupid, basically. Are any others that you care to share?

Mark Struczewski: Well, I'm a big fan of moving, so not moving your house. I mean, moving that's about to say no. My mother, like I said, she passed away from Alzheimer's in June, 2022, and she had a four year battle with Alzheimer's and to see my mom go from a super energetic person, she was only 70.

Mark Struczewski: Very young. Wow. And in the early onset of her disease, I got to talk to some of her doctors and her mother died of Alzheimer's and my mom died of Alzheimer's and I'm like, oh, okay. What's my future. And I went to the doctor and I, Hey, you know, I run every day and I said, is there anything I can do to mitigate, you know, getting Alzheimer's?

Mark Struczewski: And he said, yeah, there is actually, there's no guarantee. But there's certain things you can do. You're running. That's good because what happens as we can become older, we become sanitary, which means our blood vessels in our head calcify. And that's what they think leads to Alzheimer's and dementia.

Mark Struczewski: He says also be careful what you eat. You can still go to McDonald's. But not McDonald's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then having cupcakes and ice cream and candy and stuff like that. Once in a while, I was okay. He says, so diet exercise, getting enough, sleep seven to nine hours of sleep every day, just staying active.

Mark Struczewski: Like I'm desperately trying to learn French, you know, learn things, read books, outside your comfort zone. Anything you can do to keep your brain active. You are going to mitigate your chances of getting Alzheimer's or dementia. There's no guarantees. I understand that every time I say that people say, well, that's not true.

Mark Struczewski: First of all, a doctor, an Alzheimer's specialist doctor told me this and he also said, there's no guarantees, but there's no cure for Alzheimer's, but there's a lot you can do before you get it. And I'm like, if I have even a 1% chance of mitigating getting Alzheimer's, if I diet exercise and sleep, then I'm gonna do it.

Mark Struczewski: I mean, why not? I mean, you, we should be taking care of ourselves anyways. Not only that, but when you take care of yourself, you have more energy, which means you get more stuff done. So this all works together. So like when I'm coaching people, one of the things we talk about is health and wellness. So like health and wellness, I thought this was about productivity.

Mark Struczewski: I'm like, well, how productive can you be? If you're 400 pounds. They're like, oh yeah. So we have to get you the energy. So you get the things done. See, everybody wants to skip to the planning. How do I plan? How do I get a lot of stuff done? I'm like, whoa, we got a lot of things before that. That's the final stage.

Mark Struczewski: It's like, you know, with Tom Brady in the NFL, you know, He still goes to training camp. He still throws passes. He doesn't just say I'm just gonna sit here and binge watch Netflix and eat cupcakes and hohos and then, oh, game starting in five minutes and walk on the field he prepares.

Mark Struczewski: And so there's things you have to do, and it's all common sense, Greg. It's all common sense. I mean, you know, That you probably shouldn't be having caffeine at right before bed. You know, you shouldn't have, you know, a half a cake before bed. It's all common sense, but sometimes you need someone else to tell you, Hey that may not be a good idea.

Mark Struczewski: I've had people tell me, hook you by get by in four hours. Sleep. Now there is a very small sliver of the population out of 8 billion people that can get four hours sleep. Most people need seven to nine hours of sleep because when you're sleeping, your brain is working very hard to purge all the toxic chemicals outta your brain.

Mark Struczewski: The brain actually shrinks during the night and it flushes the brain. You know, the outer layer of the brain, that's really important. That's how we were created. So don't say, ah, sleeping, I'm dead because you don't take care of yourself. You may be dead a lot sooner than you.

Greg Mills: Yeah, I've found that out.

Greg Mills: Last year I had a heart bypass surgery and I've had to make a bunch of changes and still trying to increase more exercise. I can't run now. Not that I was running

Mark Struczewski: before, but so I just read an article this before we got on the show, the lady from it's a wonderful life, the Ruth Bailey.

Mark Struczewski: She just died. Ruth Dagan Bailey. Yeah. 97 years old. Now dear listener. If you wanna live to 97 years old, you gotta take care of yourself. I guarantee you, she wasn't, you know, drinking a case of beer and smoking cigarettes and all that. I'm sure she took reasonably good care of herself. So if you wanna live a long life, you know, unless you hit by a truck or something falls outta the sky or something like that, you, a lot of us within your control.

Mark Struczewski: And I tell people, you gotta follow people who are where you wanna be. So if you're having trouble with your marriage, don't go to someone who's been divorced three times. If you want to get in shape, don't go to someone who weighs 500 pounds. Where do you want to go? The guy I follow is grant Cardone.

Mark Struczewski: He's where I wanna be. I'm not gonna follow. You know, I get pitched all the time on social media. I can take you to the next level. I. Really, I have one person to say, I can grow your Instagram profile. I'm like really? I have like 550 followers and you have 300. Here's a clue. If you're an Instagram expert, you should have more followers than I do.

Mark Struczewski: I'm just saying, so you it's, I'm a, I come from the school of common sense, Greg. Okay. I believe that a lot of success in life is common sense. I never took up smoking. Now I think if it smelled wonderful, if cigarette smoke smelled, like, I don't know chocolate or roses, I may have taken up smoking, but the first time someone goes, you wanna smell?

Mark Struczewski: You wanna take a drag on the cigarette? And I smell. I'm like, no, that's disgusting. And I also don't drink. The reason why I don't drink is because I don't like the taste of alcohol. So I don't drink wine or beer. I don't like it. I think that's a blessing in disguise because now when I go to parties or networking events, I just have water and people go, you don't.

Mark Struczewski: I'm like, yeah, I'm drinking water. That's you don't drink alcohol. I choose not to drink alcohol and I just encourage people to figure out what small change you can do starting today. That is gonna help you become healthier. Don't try to, don't try to change everything. What small thing, maybe you have caffeine all the way up until eight o'clock.

Mark Struczewski: Well, I recommend people CA caffeine. No later than three o'clock or six hours for bed. So in my case, I go to bed at nine. So no caffeine for me after three, I actually try to back it up at two o'clock simple things. Are you drinking half your weight ounces of water? Every day, I start every day with a completely organic smoothie, you know, bananas and flax seeds and blueberries.

Mark Struczewski: I get those nutrients pumped into my body. There's little things you can do to start changing the trajectory of your life. But just thinking about it or just listening to this podcast, that's not gonna do it. You're gonna have to make some tough decisions.

Greg Mills: Yeah. I am living proof that you can work in it and not use caffeine.

Greg Mills: good for you. A lot of last year. I don't remember I was asleep, it was rough getting through it, but I don't wanna go back and I imagine I'm getting trace amounts and stuff, I don't drink soft drinks anymore.

Greg Mills: So I've cut that out. I'm trying to eat more whole foods. So how

Mark Struczewski: long were you in the hospital?

Greg Mills: About six days. Wow.

Mark Struczewski: Yeah. Wow. Did you feel like a truck hit you? Oh yeah.

Greg Mills: wow. They split you open. Oh. And it was the one thing they gave me a book to read about it and I was like, well, it's gonna happen anyway.

Greg Mills: I'm really don't wanna find out about this.

Mark Struczewski: I love that. Here's what we're gonna do to you. Yeah.

Greg Mills: If I'd read it, I probably wouldn't have gone through with the surgery. I was Considering you know, running away from the hospital cuz they, they did a procedure one night or one day and then they were like, well,

Greg Mills: Your L a D, which is the Widowmaker is a hundred percent blocked.

Greg Mills: I'd grown bypasses, but they weren't effective enough. And they, said, well we're gonna do surgery the next day. And I'm. Well, I could leave. I could get out, but where am I gonna go? That I'm not taking me.

Mark Struczewski: yeah, that's the point. And when I see people that, you know, I sometimes I see younger kids look at like older people who are like, have problems they're with walkers and.

Mark Struczewski: Wheelchairs or canes. I'm like, man, look at these people, man. It sucks to be them. I'm like, and how do you think they got to be that way? You think it was just like one day they had a cupcake and they got like that. And I tell these younger people, I said, look, it, that started because they made mistakes earlier in their life.

Mark Struczewski: You're out there. You know, completely doing whatever you wanna do, having a grand old time, eating and drinking, whatever you want. You know, I wasn't having that great of a time now. well, I'm talking about a lot of people this day and age. We seem to be back in the sixties. It's like, whatever you wanna do it.

Mark Struczewski: But the one thing you can't lie to you is your body. You could say, oh, this stuff's all fine, but your body's going, no, it's not. We're having difficulties. I have someone I'm really close to. They're arranging alcoholic. And they've been in rehab like eight or nine times and their kidneys are just like, we're done.

Mark Struczewski: Is it the kidney liver for the alcoholic? Is it liver? It's a liver, right. Okay. I think it's a liver and whatever. Is it the kidney to liver or both? Whatever it just said. We're done. We're done. You've abused us so long. We're. And we just assume that our heart's always gonna be there. We're always gonna be able to walk we're always gonna have mental clarity.

Mark Struczewski: No, if we abuse our bodies, eventually it is going to give out. That's just the way it is. These, we are not like the robot from what's that show where Skynet trans not transformers. Oh, the show with The Skynet that came down Terminator. Yeah. It's just like that. Okay. And that's not how our lives are.

Mark Struczewski: We can abuse our body. I know people, you know, there's an opioid crisis in their country right now. People get hooked on this. They get hooked on fentanyl because they wanna get high because they're not having a good light because they didn't take care of themselves or not doing what they love to do, which is something else I tell people, do what you love to.

Mark Struczewski: You'll be productive, happy people are more productive, healthy people are more productive, but the problem is people I'm just gonna go out and party. I'm gonna take one hit of fentanyl than they're dead. They're 22 years old because they think they're invincible. We are not invincible. We are not machines.

Mark Struczewski: If you don't take care of your body, this is based on, you know, thousands of people who are much smarter than I am, and you gotta take care of your body. Your body will bend every once in a while and let you get away with something. But if you continue to use it, it will. Not be happy and it will break down.

Mark Struczewski: And then when your body breaks down to the point of death, then it's game over.

Greg Mills: Yeah. Most people wanna see Jesus. They just don't wanna see 'em today.

Mark Struczewski: I love that a hundred percent. Yeah.

Greg Mills: What do you think that solo entrepreneurs should be focusing on right now? And you probably just said it with health, but I'm gonna let.

Greg Mills: Clarify.

Mark Struczewski: Well, well, that's interesting. You said clarify because I think people need to get clarity. Lot of people don't have any clarity. They just go, wow. I wanna be an entrepreneur and yeah, I wanna make a lot of money. Okay. Okay. That's not being clear. What do you wanna do? Who is your target market?

Mark Struczewski: What products do you wanna have? What are your passions like? I can be on an audio podcast. I can be on a video podcast. I can write a blog post. I can go live, you know, what are your talents? And. People are just trying to live life in the moment and you should be present, but you gotta have some plan.

Mark Struczewski: And I believe everyone is called on this planet to do something. I love how Kathy Lee Gifford says, if you have a pulse, you have a purpose. Most people don't know what their purpose is, but you gotta figure out what lights you up and you know, what lights you up. I wake up every morning, excited if you wake up and you're like, Ugh.

Mark Struczewski: Morning already. Oh, I hate my job. Okay. Well, something, I promise you something lights you up and I'm not talking about the drugs or the alcohol of the parties or the games, something lights you up. Maybe that's helping people, maybe that's, you know, writing whatever you need to find out what that thing lights you up, and then start figuring out a way to spend a lot of time doing that.

Mark Struczewski: And eventually when you get really good at. Then you quit your job and you start doing that. James clear wrote a book called atomic habits. He started by writing a blog post every day, then twice and three times a week. That's how we started getting all the followers. Then he decided to write a book. So he took his passion and started doing with it.

Mark Struczewski: I had a number of years ago, I had someone who said, you know, I really wanna be a coder. Like, that's great. So how many hours a day do you spend coding? Oh, I don't code I'm like, wait, you know, all these kids out there, all they do is code. All they do is code. They get with their friends and they just code.

Mark Struczewski: You're not coding at all. And I'm like I think you're just chasing the money because if you wanna code, you are coding without getting paid for it. You're going to your friend's house and you're just coding together and she isn't doing anything. I'm like, well, I don't think you wanna be a coder. Yeah.

Mark Struczewski: I'm a runner. I run, Greg, I don't say I'm a runner. Do you run? Oh, I don't run. I just, I got nice shoes. I actually run. I'm a podcaster. I have nearly 1200 episodes of my podcast. I'm a podcaster you can't think about, I am such and such. You have to go do it. Like you're a podcaster, you have a podcast. And so many people are just they're entering the world of wishful thinking.

Mark Struczewski: So for the entrepreneurs and the solo entrepreneurs, I don't wanna hear what you wanna do. I wanna know what you're doing. I'd rather hear you saying, you know what? I started the podcast and one person listens to it. It's my mom. Okay. That's better than you not starting it. Cuz guess what? Everyone starts out with one listener, usually mom, and then you work on building your audience.

Mark Struczewski: Same with email, same with, you know, social. I don't want to hear what you're someday I'm gonna, what are you doing? And if you're in a career Mr. Or Mrs. Solo or entrepreneur, and you hate it why you still doing it? Maybe you should try to do something else that lights you up. I think because you only get one life.

Mark Struczewski: We should do stuff that lights us up that gets excited every day. Even if you're sick, you wanna do this. I mean, I wake up every day and I'm always, I'm working on my business seven days a week, cuz I love it. It's not a job. I love what I'm doing. The entrepreneur solo entrepreneur, listening to this needs to figure out what that is.

Mark Struczewski: Don't chase the money. Don't chase the fame. You're not gonna be the Kardashians. Okay. You need to figure out what lights you up. What gets you excited every day when you find that you will be the most productive version you've ever been of. Okay.

Greg Mills: Now we know what your number one skill is. It's gonna be productivity or at least that's my interpretation of it, but what's your number one?

Greg Mills: Weakness.

Mark Struczewski: Patience. Oh, I hate lines. When someone signs up to be my show, when they show up late I only wait five minutes now. I used to wait 15 minutes. I just, I'm so impatient, you know, the microwave sometimes isn't fast enough for me, you know, I'm, my, my wife is one of the most patient people and I'm one of the most impatient people.

Mark Struczewski: I'm like, let's go. Let's go. I'm like, if I was ever president and I would never run for president, but if I was ever president you better believe. That those press conferences. If I said it's gonna be at three o'clock, I will walk out on before the podium at three o'clock. I don't care if nuclear, the war started.

Mark Struczewski: I'm a man of my word and I'm, I hate being late. And to me, when you are telling someone you're gonna meet him at the restaurant that breakfast with at seven o'clock, you better be there by 10 to seven that's on time being on time is late in my opinion. So my weakness is my impatience. Oh my goodness.

Greg Mills: What's been the most difficult part of being Mr. Productivity,

Mark Struczewski: humbling myself to realize I don't have all the answers. I don't have every productivity strategy, hack or tip. I'm still a student of productivity. I'm constantly learning, but sometimes I gotta remind myself, Hey, you know what? You don't know everything.

Mark Struczewski: Tim Ferris doesn't know everything. James clear doesn't know everything and the most successful people. Are constantly learning. So I gotta keep in my mind that I'm a work in progress. Yeah.

Greg Mills: Aren't we all

Greg Mills: let's get ready to wrap this up. What final words of wisdom would you like to share?

Mark Struczewski: I want people to live their. Not your employer's life. Not your spouse's life. Not your parents' life.

Mark Struczewski: Not your neighbor's life. Not your best friend's life. Live your life. We have a family dentist. He went through me. He went to school, mechanical engineering, graduated with honors. Then he realized I didn't wanna be a mechanical engineering. He went back to school, graduated dental school with honors, and now he's a dentist.

Mark Struczewski: That's a really expensive lesson. Again, you get one life. So do what you love to do. That's so important. If you can nail that down, if you can figure out what that is, you will be so happy. And as a result, you'll get so much stuff done.

Greg Mills: Okay. Now what's the best way for people to check you out and get in touch with you, mark.

Mark Struczewski: Well, I want people to go over to my website. Overwhelm sucks.com. Yes, you did hear that. Right? Overwhelm sucks. Dot com. That'll take

Greg Mills: page to my X or Ks.

Mark Struczewski: S U Ks. Didn't even think about the other one until just now. so. When you go to overwhelm sucks.com, you can sign up to get my free guide. 10 quick ways to conquer overwhelm.

Mark Struczewski: I know the last thing you wanna do when you're overwhelm is read a 97 page report. So you just go there and name an email address, and I'll send you an email with the guide in there. And I don't want you just to get the guide. I don't want you just to get the guide to read it. I want you to get the guy, read it and implement it.

Mark Struczewski: And I made it really simple. The book really simple. So it's like tip one, tip twos, tip three, tip four. I want you to take action because if you can learn to conquer overwhelm, you're gonna be more productive. Now, once you get the guide, you'll have access to my website. My website's Mr. productivity.com, but I really want people to go to overwhelm sox.com to get the free guide.

Mark Struczewski: It's my gift to them. And I really want people to stop having all this overwhelm because overwhelm is not doing you any good. There's no benefit to being over. Amen.

Greg Mills: Well, that's a wrap. Thank you mark. For being a guest on entrepreneurs over 40.

Mark Struczewski: Thank you for having me.