Unleashing Creativity: Mark Steiner's Journey from Adoption to Entrepreneurial Success

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is Mark Steiner, the co-founder and CEO of the online leading market at Gig Selly, which is responsible for helping more than four million connecting more than four million event planners with entertainers, speakers, and service providers. But Mark's story is way more than just building a successful company. Mark has also participated in acting and talent representation. Mark was adopted at birth and diagnosed with ADHD later in life. And he has created a workplace that has leadership, vulnerability, and it's a place where people can thrive. So we're going to be talking to Mark about his journey and everything that he's up to and gonna be up to and be talking to him about his leading online platform that he helped co-found and is the CEO of. So Mark, thank you for joining me. Thank you, Curtis.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Uh it's great to be here. Looking forward to talking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Well that that was a nice that was nice. I guess that was mostly things I would have my my team would have provided. Uh yeah, I I am uh I'm a I'm a si I'm 60 years old. I uh turned 60 this year. Um I am not slowing down. I have had the great fortune of building a you know, the helping to be a part of Gig Salad and being the leader in this in the event marketplace space. Um and because of that success, it's afforded me the ability and the opportunity to do other things. Um, I have an amazing team that uh including a partner that um does a lot of the daily heavy lifting of gig salad, keeping it as thriving as it is. Um as a CEO, I've I've carved myself sort of a uh a special place in how I'm able to lead and uh I don't have to be present all the time. Um uh I I I don't I don't even necessarily have to work that hard, let's put it that way. Um it really is a seamless run machine, and um uh I I've discovered um that being an entrepreneur is one of the best forms of creativity that I can express myself. And so starting, I found myself starting projects, starting, starting, having startups that I'm working on. Um I I'm not I'm not slowing down. I'm being as creative and as busy and I'm as ambitious as I've ever been about making things, creating things, and um hopefully with that are meaningful and are good services that help others and they can they're entertaining and um so yeah, that's that's where I'm at currently. I'm a I'm a I'm also a father. Uh I have two grown children that are amazing and very good people. Um one's a lawyer and the other's uh about to start applying to med schools. He he just um uh got his MCAT results, so that's he's starting to figure out where he's gonna go to medical school. Um and uh, you know, besides that, I'm just living a really good life. I have I live in Springfield, Missouri. I travel a lot, and um I'm trying to do my life with a lot of purpose and meaning, you know, being very intentional about each day and each moment.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Well, I know that your journey began in acting and talent representation. So talk to the listeners about that and talk uh about what moments along that journey led you to believe that entrepreneurship was the path that you needed to take.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

Thank you. Um I I was born in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Um, I was adopted at birth. So uh I was born on March 10th, and I was home with my my new parents, uh my parents uh on March 30th. Uh I grew up at a you know uh first home was we we lived in uh South Jersey near Philadelphia. Um my father worked for RCA and then he got transferred to a a plant in North, more north North Jersey, central North Jersey. And so we moved to Hunterdon County, and that's where I lived from third grade through high school, and it was a very bucolic, uh you know, beautiful, lovely upbringing, um, sort of very solidly middle class. Um didn't want for much, or you know, I didn't need I didn't want for anything. I mean, I I was um I just lived a very I was very lucky and um uh my parents were really good about um exposing my sister and I to arts and culture and events, and we would go to sporting events, we would go to the theater, we would go to concerts, we would go to we were just always in and around arts and culture and things that would you know for me especially, um they were things that um I found really interesting, they uh uh intrigued me, and I I knew very early on as a result of being again being exposed to the arts and and entertainment that that was the feel that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a movie star, I wanted to be a rock star. I I wanted to be kind of I wanted to be bigger than life. I wanted to be whatever I did, I wanted to be on a stage and I wanted to be seen and I wanted to be heard, and um and that's I never let go of that dream. I didn't always work really hard on honing the craft to to get there, but I always had the dream in the at least in the remnants of it in the back of my head, like someday, someday, someday. Um I you know, junior high, high school, I started to drift a little bit. I started to, you know, uh lose my uh not didn't lose my way exactly, but I I wasn't necessarily working on being, you know, I wasn't a great student. Um I um I was really more interested in those uh you know junior high and high school just being popular. And so that's what I did. I partied, I partied a lot and I was the party guy. Um and then when it got time to, you know, graduating, um, it was like, uh-oh, what am I gonna do? You know, I knew I didn't want to be a I didn't want to go to college because I just didn't think I was college material. I didn't really necessarily enjoy the classroom setting. Um I found out later in life that I was diag I got diagnosed with ADHD. And so that sort of filled in a lot of the blanks. And uh as I looked back on my life, I could I I understood what was going on, you know, why I was why was I so easily distracted? Why couldn't I focus? What what why was I always daydreaming? Um, et cetera, et cetera. And so um when I got to when I was in high school, I took a vocational course of culinary arts. We we learned uh it was a two-year course, and at I was planning on going to culinary school, and then I did my senior musical and thought, no, this is what I've always said I want to do. I want to be a performer, and this is what I'm gonna try to do. And I um when I graduated high school, I uh got uh was cast in a children's theater troupe that traveled around the country. We went to schools from K to K to 12. Um it was called the Robin Hood Players, and I was um I uh me and one other person were in a truck. There was a bunch of these troops all over the country, and we would go to these schools. And at that, we did a play called Old Hickory. It was about Andrew Jackson, and I played Andrew, and uh um, and when that run was done, I thought, well, now's my time. I'm gonna move into New York City and I'm gonna try to get a lucky break and and see what happens. And I did. I got a I got a very I was very fortunate and I got a uh uh I met a woman who worked in the movie business and she helped to get me my first job, and that was all it took from that point on. I I bounced from one movie to the next to the next for over 10 years. I did that. And uh during that time I got a part on a film director knew I really wanted to be an actor, and so I I was in production and in films, but I was also I uh once I became a member of the Screen Actors Guild, I did a lot of um background work and extra work and occasional stand-in and occasional day player and um had a great, great run, but I I realized that what I thought I wanted to be, which you know, then I was kind of young and dumb and immature. I I discovered what I learned was it wasn't necessarily that I really wanted to be a great actor at that time in my life. I really just wanted to be famous. I wanted to be known, I wanted to be, you know, again, an extension of being popular. I just wanted to be famous. And um and that's not a good reason. That's not a good reason to try to pursue anything in life. Um, and it took a a little bit of years and a little bit of maturity to understand that. And so when I when I learned that about myself, I said, well, I've given the movie business a good run and I was on to sort of the next thing in my life. And uh basically I ended up becoming, I was a booking agent. And I started working for a small boutique agency called Phoenix Talent Agency, which was owned and operated by the same people that owned and operated the Glenn Miller Orchestra. So big big bands from way back. And that's what I did for seven years for this agency as I booked big bands, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, um, and then lots of jazz. I got into jazz artists and nostalgia artists. And um I did that for seven years, and then I started my own agency, Steiner Talent, and that that morphed into and expanded to include a speakers bureau. So I started representing speakers and personalities. I started working with um uh actors and performers on from uh for appearances like autograph signings and speaking engagements, things like that. And after I launched my site, um an opportunity came where I was having a problem. I was I was answering a lot of phone calls and and replying to a lot of emails from artists, what I refer to as local regional artists, that were looking for representation. They're starting to search. This was back in 2002, 2003. So kind of early on in the internet, um, where people, I think artists were starting to search for opportunities. And my website was popping up. And um, I would take every phone call and I would take every reply to every email and try to help people, even though that wasn't really my business model. I was booking international and national celebrities, personalities, you know, headliners, not your local regional sort of bands and balloon twisters and magicians and clowns and these types of artists. But I while I was getting contacted by them, I was also getting contacted by event planners. So moms planning kids' birthday parties and brides planning their weddings, and it it just made sense. Um, I have to figure out how to bring these two parties together. So, with my co-founder, he was my friend that had designed my website. I said, listen, we we gotta figure this out. I think there's an opportunity here. And off we went and we we created Gig Salad. And here I am 20 23 years later, um still doing it. And uh and we became the the leader in our space. We're number one in our space. We're we're the biggest event, you know, event marketing site in the in the world, as far as that goes. We have over 115,000 members on our platform, and millions and millions and millions of event planners have utilized our site to book the entertainment and performers and event service providers that they needed. And that's I guess that's a bet that's that's the summary of my journey where where I've been and where I'm at now.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Well, I know that Gig Salad has uh connected millions of people through live events. Can you share a story that uh shows why the company exists and how important it really is?

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Yeah, yeah, I can. We we officially launched so we we had a beta version up. I think the first iteration we had created by I think it was around 2004. And 2003, end of 2003, beginning of 2004, I think is how it went. Um and I just I would reach out, I was reaching out to the local regional performers that I knew. My wife at the time was a concert violinist, and she she did a lot of gigging for weddings and things. And so I knew that world, and I just invited those people to get on Gig Salad and give it a try, and it worked. Um, and we we had a version of it up and running for several years, and then we hired our first full-time developer, and we gave that person some equity in the company, and off we went. I mean, his name is Locke, and he changed, he made, he made it what it has become. Like he was he was a real as a developer, as a coder, he's he's a he's um he's like an artist. He's a really extremely smart and very gifted, very talented, and very meticulous about what what he creates. And um when we when he did that at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007, we then really launched. We came out very big and we said, here we are, and that changed the everything. It changed the trajectory. We we just started taking off. And at that point, when we when we were creating, Steve and I, we we were both working out of our homes. I was, you know, I my booking agent was just myself and agency, although I did have one or two people kind of helping me at this at that stage. Um, but we worked around my kitchen table. I'm actually doing this, I'm doing this podcast right now with my computer sitting on top of what was the kitchen table back in 2007. It's found its way to my office. Um and we realized that we're not gonna be able to do this with the few people that we have. And we realized we're gonna have to get an office. And we went and bought a building and renovated the building and turned our, you know, put our office in there and started to grow the business. And while and the whole time I was still doing talent, my my my booking agency, Steve, my part, my co-founder, he was a he was a graphic designer and a web designer, and he had his business, Tetra Design. And when we launched, and from for several years, all from 2007 all the way through until mid-2011, everything that we made, we put back into the company. Steve and I didn't draw anything out. We we, as I said, we just kept hiring people and building the infrastructure of the business. And then finally in July of 2011, we said, listen, I we can, I think we can safely say, you know, we're gonna make our living now from gig salad. And so I folded Steiner talent into the common interest of gig salad because it was still kind of close. We, you know, I booked, I booked artists, and we got this other platform that's at this event marketplace. We can we can do both. And Steve closed uh Tetro Design, and from that point off on off we went. I mean, it was it was um it's been amazing. It's been an amazing, amazing run. It's that was 15 years ago, and uh in 22, Loc and I bought out Steve. So now it's just Locke and I. And it's uh you know, the thing about Gig Salad, Curtis, is that we give people the Gig Salad is a platform that gives people the opportunity to do what they love. So if you we we have face every we have face painters, we have balloon twisters, we have clowns, we have all, you know, all sorts, we have 500 different categories of entertainment and performers and event service providers you can you can find on Gig Salad. And about half of them are music related. So we have all sorts of genres of music and you know, cover bands that do weddings and corporate events. We have classical artists and jazz artists and world music and rap and hip-hop, any anything you can imagine. And I'm really proud of the fact that we give people that these artists and these performers and photographers and bartenders a platform where they get work and they get lots of work off of Gig Salad. We have people that are full-time professionals and they get they make all of their, they make, they can make their entire living on being on Gig Salad. Um, others are more weekend warriors, they're people that have might have day jobs uh during the week, but they like to do their the their this side gig when they can. So nights and weekends, they might gig. And so I'm I'm I'm really proud from that standpoint that we are giving getting people work. And then on the other side of it, uh, because in every marketplace there's there's the buyers and there's the sellers, um, the event planners on our platform. The exciting part about that is we uh we we are a part of people's special events throughout their lives, from we call we say from cradle to grave, people that are might be proposing to their their partner, weddings, births, birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, funerals, just all of life's events, all the most special events of people's lives, the places where people make some of their best and fondest memories. Gig salad is a part of that too. And uh our team does an amazing job to to for for for all these people. We have an I and I have a really amazing team. Um just fantastic people that are kind and care about people, and we have an incredible, they just we we provide a really spectacular customer service experience. Um, I have great partner, I have great leaders in the company, and it it's just it's the it's one of the joys of my life is being a part of Gig Salad.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Well, you were adopted at birth, so talk about how that shapes the way that you build relationships, lead teams, and define belonging.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Interesting question.

unknown 23:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

I mean being an adoptee, um it's an interesting it's an interesting uh viewpoint.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

It's an interesting perspective, you know, one because one thing in order to be adopted, it means you have to have been um passed on, passed off, let's call it that. Um I asked Chat GBT about this. Like I I was trying to get a different perspective on how I looked at my adoption, you know, and I used to look at it in terms of rejection rejection and abandonment and being let go and not being enough and etc. This is the the thoughts that us, you know, as a small child, you sort of create stories, you make up stories and narratives of how did I get here? Um, if you don't have all that information, you start to try to put it together yourself and try to understand it. Um, and even though I had an amazing experience, you know, I I was very, very lucky, very blessed to get the parents that I got, you know. I also have a sister and she's adopted. Um still for me in my case, even though I was uh when I was um my from my first birthday on, we always we we always celebrated two celebrated twice. We would celebrate March 10th, the day I was born. So that was my birthday, and then we would celebrate March 30th, and that was the day I came home. And so we would celebrate that, and we would talk about on that day, they would read a little book to me that was talked about how special I was because I was chosen, I was selected. Um and I just couldn't, I couldn't entirely accept that on it on the face, you know. It was, yeah, but I also had to have been let go and abandoned. And what's that about? And unfortunately, I carried that in throughout much of my life, you know. I had, you know, as I became, you know, as a as a young adult, I really started having to uh had to be really careful in my relationships because I would often enter into a relationship thinking, well, I wonder if this person is going to abandon me. I wonder if this person's going to reject me. I wonder if this person's going to leave me. You know, it was that kind of thoughts like thinking I'm not I'm not enough. I'm I'm not good enough. I'm not valuable. Um and it took time. It took a lot of time. I mean, I'm a faithful man. I'm a I'm a I'm a believer. I you know, I spent a lot of time in prayer with God trying to grapple and wrestle with this. Um, I've spent a lot of time in counseling and therapy uh discussing this topic and and trying to uh understand it and process it. And um, you know, I can tell you here I am at 60 and I'm I'm good. And I've been good for a long time, you know. I maybe the past 20 or 30 years, I think I started to really do better with it. Um, but it it wasn't always that way. Um, you know, I think, and it doesn't even necessarily take the act of being adopted to feel some of these feelings, you know. I think a lot in my experience, I know a lot of people that sometimes don't feel valuable, they don't they don't feel heard, they don't feel seen, they don't feel special, they don't feel loved, they don't feel lovable, you know. Um, and um I think my adoption has helped me to be more empathetic to people, to really be able to connect and have compassion for people that might feel that way too. And I think because of all the study and reading and counseling and therapy that I've been through throughout my life to try to feel feel valuable and feel loved and feel lovable and all of that. And then of course, my all my my church experience and et cetera, I feel like I'm I'm at a place in my life now where I'm I I feel like I'm on the other side of it, and I feel like I'm someone who can walk with people, you know, hold space for people that are feeling those same things. Um I can I can relate to them and it's it's actually one of the things why I enjoy doing these podcasts is to be able to talk about it. And hopefully there's you know, um, maybe there's a listener that's you know a part of your a part of your audience that feels this way too. And what I would say to them is uh uh you're you are valuable, you do matter, you do count, um, and you know, it just takes some work sometimes to to get there to un to appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Well, receiving a ADHD diagnosis later in life can change the way that people understand themselves. So now that that uh diagnosis changed the way that you uh make sense of things and the way that you lead.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Absolutely. Yeah, that was it was um two and a half, almost coming up, no, it's probably right at three years ago now. Yeah, it was around it was around August, September of 23. Uh what happened was my daughter was in law school and she got diagnosed with ADHD, and she was telling me what the symptoms were. And I I thought, what that's you're describing me, you know. Um what is this? What is what are you talking about? ADHD. I didn't know what ADHD was before that. Um and so I went and got screened. I got with a psychiatrist and got screened, and sure enough, I got the diagnosis. And and the really remarkable part of that, Curtis, is that it came with a lot of emotion. There was a lot of feelings that I I was very moved, um, but it was this overwhelming just hodgepodge of cornucopia of feelings all at once. The the th the first the first feeling was kind of like there was a little bit of relief. It's like, oh okay, that explains so much, you know, like in a flash, in the way an ADHD person can do. I went back to my, you know, I was looking at my one-year-old self and saying, okay, how you acted, you know, how what the things you were thinking, um that I get it now. Like when ya when I got into school, how I was as a student, how I how I was with my friends, how I was with my how I interacted, um, what my thoughts were, the fact I was such a dreamer, and my imagination was so rich, always like I was always like just fantasizing about life and things I wanted to do and things I thought I could be. And um, and then there was the rumination side, the things that would scare me, the things I worried about, how I would get into a thought and would couldn't let it go. I would just camp out on these thoughts to the point where I got really scared or really sad or really I was just afraid, you know. That was often where things led to was fear and and and and back to the adoption. The fear, the fear place I usually went to was, oh, this is going to cause people to, you know, people aren't gonna like me, people aren't gonna love me, I'm gonna be rejected again. It's all it always went to that, like, oh, I'm gonna lose friends, oh, I'm gonna lose family, oh, I'm not my girlfriend's gonna leave me, oh my wife, you know, it's just always these often these dark places I would go. Um, but I you know, but I also knew the real highs. I knew what it, I I mean, I knew what it meant to be felt I felt manic a lot of times. I felt invincible. I felt like I could do anything. Uh, I felt like I often felt like I had superpowers. Like I was uh, you know, it was just this, it was this yin-yang sort of thing. Like one minute I was um felt like I could conquer the world, and next minute I was second-guessing myself self and thinking, yeah, but can you really, can you really conquer the world? Um and and so yeah, those two things, those two A's, adoption and ADHD, are the are the two biggest factors that um I would say, you know, what is my identity sort of formed? What what where was it born from? I'd say it was those two things, you know, that that the act of being redirected when I was the moment I was born, I was redirected. And then where how the my my condition, my ADHD condition, which I'm you know, I'm sure I was born with, um affected how I viewed the world and it affected how I interacted with the world. And um, you know, you figure it out. That's the that's the thing about being a an ADHD person, is you tend to be pretty scrappy. You tend to learn how to make adjustments and figure things out. You you mask, you know, you when in relationships and in groups in in social settings, you learn how to put on a mask in order to connect with people or in order to be accepted by a person or a group. And those are pretty interesting skills that you know. If you can harness those skills, they can become, you know, they can become real gifts. Um, they can be a part of your what your talents and your strengths. Um and that's I think that's why you hear a lot that that entrepreneurs and founders of companies often are ADHD fellow ADHD people because they, you know, one thing I know for sure that I have the ability to spin lots of plates at once. I could be I can think about a lot of different things at one time, I can do a lot of things at what at one time. Um it's not to say I always do those things super well. It's not always to say that I don't occasionally drop a plate or drop a ball that I'm juggling, but for the most part, I can, you know, sometimes you forget things and forget where you were and where do you pick up and where you left off, etc. But that's the thing. You we figure it out. Um, and you also surround yourself with really if you do it right, you surround yourself with really good people, really talented people, smart people, gifted people, people that have strengths that are your weaknesses, and then that compensates for you, and you're able to um you know move things along. If if you're a good visionary and you can show people sort of where you want to go, um, and get those people to rally behind behind you or part of the group, and they they sort of buy into it, then you really you can accomplish a lot, and that's what and that's what I've done, and that's what we've done as a as a team.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Well, what's the biggest misconception that you feel that people have about making a living through creativity?

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Oh well, that goes back to what you said before about entrepreneurship, or you know, and I'm not sure I answered that question actually. What I've discovered, Curtis, is that for me, I I learned in the past couple years that being an entrepreneur is in fact one of my favorite ways of expressing myself creatively. Um I used to think that being creative was being art was being artistic. And being artistic for me, the sort of creativity or the art that I wanted to be doing was as an actor or as a musician, as a singer, as a songwriter. It was all sort of performance related. I never would have thought that running a business, owning a business, starting a business, taking taking an idea or concept and and building it and creating something around that in the business world was also being creative. Uh, but I but through through a number of through years, uh, especially the past few years, when I I became an empty nester in 20, uh, my youngest son, my son went off to college, and um I was at this age and stage where I was like, okay, well, I have I have lots of all this extra time now. What is it I want to do? And I decided I just wanted to travel and explore and discover places and go visit my kids and just travel around. And I went to a lot of concerts and music festivals and I was having a lot of fun, but I wasn't necessarily being creative. I wasn't making anything, I wasn't doing anything. And when I realized that about two years ago, I said, I'm gonna be creative again. And in that decision, one of my commitments was I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be a better CEO. I'm gonna be an even better CEO than I already am. And I'm gonna really lean into my business and I'm gonna be more available and I'm gonna be uh more present and on and on. And and then at the same time, I had some new ideas, some new concepts of some of some new projects I wanted to do. I've I've I've I I've gotten into real estate with my business partner recently, and we started buying some property, some commercial properties, and I have a lot of fun being creative in that and growing that development business and renovating buildings and working with architecture and architects and other creatives. So that's one form of uh uh creative expression that I'm able to do. Um, and at the same time, I have some other startups that I'm working on, uh, a social gaming app that's based on the Rushmore, the Mount Rushmore. I'm not sure if you know that concept. If anybody's ever said, hey, what's your rushmore of something? I'm I'm working on something there. And um, and I'm and after a long time, uh, pretty much after, well, it's been probably 30 years, I've decided I'm going to be an actor again. I'm going, and this time I'm really gonna be a great actor. I want to be, it's not about being famous anymore. It's just that I want to act. I love, I love that art form. So I started, I've been taking classes and I'm studying, and I'm gonna start auditioning and I'm hoping to get some representation. And we'll see, Curtis, maybe in a year or two you'll we'll be talking about the movies I'm in. Um, but I'm do I'm doing all the things that I've ever been interested in: music, songwriting, food, travel. Um uh I'm doing it all. I'm a content creator now. I have uh, you know, I have a website that I started, I launched on my birthday um called Thinkapon. Thinkapon.com. I launched it on March 10th, and it's a place where I uh blog. I do a lot of writing, I do a lot of uh videos. Um I have a uh partner that's helping me with that. She's she basically manages, she manages me, she manages all the content and um daily. We're putting up probably three different three different types of content daily. I'm I'm I have a podcast that I do with two co-hosts. We don't interview people, we just talk between us. Um I'm doing more than I've ever done in my life, Curtis. I feel more youthful than I've ever felt. I feel healthy, I feel young, I feel ambitious, and I've basically given myself permission to say, if I have an if I have an interest in something, I'm gonna go try it. And if I can turn that interest into a commitment where I say, I'm leaning into this, I'm gonna practice this, I'm gonna learn this, I'm gonna become better at this. Uh, I'm gonna at least try. I'm gonna all the things I've ever thought about, I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna miss an opportunity. And it's kept me really busy, but it's kept me really also it's kept me. I feel really fulfilled by it. I feel very complete because I'm actually doing things um and not just talking about them.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Well, you also have the website, gigsalad.com.

SPEAKER_02 41:50

So that's right. That is right, and that keeps me really busy too.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Absolutely. We'll close us out with some final thoughts, maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_02 42:03

Thank you, Curtis. I would like to leave your listeners with this the gig salad slogan or motto is peace, love, and gigs. And that is how I'm trying to live my life. That is what I would love to encourage everybody else to how I would love the world to be, you know, a place of peace where we have more peacemakers than we have peacebreakers, you know, people that people find peace within themselves and that they promote peace, that people find love within themselves, and the overflow of that love, they love others. We do we do better there. Um, and then the the last part of that, the gig part, I think is really important, and because I believe that one's gig, I think that everybody on this planet has one thing at least, one distinct thing that only they could do because of who they are. They their fingerprint, their what makes them up. That's the the the it's the thing that makes them the unique and special, that if they can, if they can find that thing, then they then they've found the meaning of life. It's the thing that that hopefully that they could, if they could turn it into a vocation or a career, that would be great if they could make a living doing it. But sometimes someone's gig is not even a job necessarily. It might be that it might be that someone just wants to be the uh the best mother they can be, the best father they can be. Like they that's the thing that that's the thing that they they care most about in their life. And they realize that and they know that it's something that makes them special, it's something that makes them feel valuable, it's something that they believe that they're bringing value value to the world. And so um I would just encourage everyone: if you don't know what your gig is, find it. Find it. If you've dreamt about doing something in your life, maybe from a as a child, you had a dream about who you wanted to be and what you wanted to do, and maybe lost your way, maybe got sidetracked, life happens. Get back to get back on it. It's never too late. I'm somebody that's telling you at 60 years old, I'm looking at the second half of my life and saying, the best is yet to come. And I uh and and I'm I'm like I said, I've never been happier, I've never been more have had had as much joy, and I I I just feel very content. I feel very I'm I'm complete as it is right now, but I'm also prepar I'm also excited to see what more is going to come. And I I want that for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

All right, ladies and gentlemen, gigsala.com, think about upon.com. Please be sure to check out everything that Mark is up to and gonna be up to. And follow up rate review, share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, if you haven't done so, please visit www.curveballs337.com. Check out the newsletter, sign up for it if you haven't done so. Leave us a review and share the website and the show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Mark, thank you for all that you're doing, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

Curtis, thank you. You're you're a great host. I appreciate the opportunity. All the best to you.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.