When Success Costs You Peace with Anthony Spark

What if the drive that made you successful is also the thing quietly costing you your peace? 

In this episode of Shine On Success, host Dionne Malush sits down with life, business, and money coach Anthony Spark, founder of Spark a Change Coaching and author of The Phoenix Manifesto, for a deeply honest conversation about ambition, anxiety, and the hidden cost of high achievement. Anthony shares his journey from early adversity to financial success, and why success often arrives before emotional healing.

Together, Dionne and Anthony explore the fear of scarcity, the trap of constant hustle, and why money and achievement don’t automatically create safety or fulfillment. This conversation dives into faith, integrity, emotional margin, and what it really means to build a life that works both publicly and privately. If you’ve ever felt successful on the outside but overwhelmed, disconnected, or exhausted inside, this episode will meet you right where you are.

Connect with Anthony here:

Website: www.phoenixevolution.co

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonykspark/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a_spark_is_born/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mr.anthony.spark

Chapters

• 0:02 Meet Anthony Spark And His Mission
• 2:02 Early Adversity And First Ventures
• 5:24 Network Marketing And Finding Coaching
• 6:57 When Ambition Outruns Values
• 10:24 Panic, Overwork, And Fear Of Scarcity
• 13:05 Money Beliefs That Keep Us Stuck
• 16:20 Structure Beats Motivation In The Middle
• 19:02 Choosing Margin Over Endless Busy
• 22:07 Comparison, Clarity, And Honest Choices
• 25:42 Faith, Integrity, And Courage Under Pressure
• 29:00 Warning Signs You’re Winning Wrong
• 32:10 What’s Next And How To Connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

What if the drive that made you successful is the same thing quietly costing you your peace? Today's guest is Anthony Spark, life and business coach, money coach, author of the Phoenix Manifesto, and founder of Spark a Change Coaching. Such a great name. For over 20 years, Anthony has helped people build financial clarity, habits, and lives that actually work, without losing their identity, integrity, or emotional health in the process. His story didn't begin with advantage, it began with adversity. A father in prison, financial instability, and working full-time at 15 to support his mother. Responsibility came early, control followed. And like many high performances, success arrived before healing. By 18, he launched his first business. By 25, he stepped away from traditional work, not to escape effort, but to pursue leadership, personal development, and impact with intention. Today, Anthony's mission is clear: help people win financially without succeeding publicly while suffering privately. He speaks mostly about faith, emotional health, discipline, and the inner work required to build real wealth that doesn't collapse your life behind the scenes. This conversation is about hyper hustle. It's about truth ownership and becoming full. Anthony, welcome to Shine on Success. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00: 1:19

I am doing wonderful. Thanks for that illustrious introduction. I have to thank my virtual assistant Nemuella for writing that. It was so wonderful. No, I read that. You wrote that. I was like, man, Nam is on it. Dion, you crushed it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:32

Yeah, we need to borrow it if you ever need to.

SPEAKER_00: 1:35

Wow. I was like, this is amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:38

I love that you said that because I am so I love this is the part that I love preparing for the podcast. It's so cool. And I have such a process to view my way.

SPEAKER_00: 1:47

You crushed it. I was gonna be like, I I'm glad you told me. I've been like, nah, that intro was amazing.

SPEAKER_01: 1:52

That's great. So, anyway, I always like to start with this question. If people only knew your results, your income achievements and titles, what would they miss about who you really are?

SPEAKER_00: 2:02

I think they would miss that I think the most important thing in life is family, relationships, and your own personal self-sovereignty, your own integrity. I hear a lot of people they put everything on a dichotomy, right? So it's like success or it's family, or it's integrity or failure. And when we only have two options, we're always trapped. I'm not against ambition. I'm a very ambitious guy. We've built a lot of things. I love building things, you know, and I'm not against making money. What I'm against is when our ambition takes over and what we're willing to trade for that ambition. When our ambition becomes more important than our values, because being ambitious is fine, but being ambitious and being willing to pay anything for that outcome, that's where we lose ourselves and you end up becoming a shell of a person and you have nothing but money and no people, no peace. And ultimately, if you got to choose people and peace or money, people and peace are better. Now, thankfully, you don't have to choose one or the other, but I see a lot of people make a really bad trade.

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

Wow, that makes a lot of sense. So can you tell a little bit about your story, how it all started? And I know we talked about a little bit in the intro, but what got you to where you where we are today?

SPEAKER_00: 3:11

Yeah. So uh my family was crazy, like you heard. You know, a lot of dysfunction, a lot of well-meaning people that just never really got the kind of training that they needed or help in a lot of ways, but they did the best they could. My mom was a single mom, my dad went to prison. I was working full-time at 15. And I grew up, I'm 37. You know, you're probably 29, so I'm probably No, I'm 57.

SPEAKER_01: 3:30

I'm 20 years older than you. 20.

SPEAKER_00: 3:33

So I wouldn't have I will I didn't say that though. I want to be clear. But I grew up much more similar to you than people that are 27, right? So I was graduating high school. There's no social media, there's no gig economy, there's no cryptocurrency, there's no Robin Hood. There's no so there wasn't a lot of options out there. I figured I was become a doctor. I want to help people make a lot of money. And the bet I didn't want to be a doctor. I want to help people make a lot of money, and that was the best I could figure. Cause I think that's two different types of people people that want to become a doctor and people that want to have the kind of outcome, right? So, but when I was 18, or just turning 18, a friend of mine, the steep place he worked at, told me he met someone that told me he was going to retire at 28. And I never realized that was an option. My guidance counselor didn't say go to college or go into a trade or retire in your 20s. And there's no social media, there's no gurus, there's no courses, there's no entrepreneurship major at college. So I remember thinking to myself, like, I would do anything to not have to work a conventional job. I thought you were born rich or you worked your whole life. When he happened, you know, thankfully I got to meet him. A lot of people, you know, including my friend the man, I was like, Well, if that's a pyramid or a scam, everybody's gonna get you. And I said, it might be, but um, I don't know if you forgot. My family are criminals. So I will figure I will figure it out. I'm not proud to say it, you know. When uh when my my family wants to have like a communion or a Christian at christening, they don't have the money usually to rent a place. So they use my cousin's strip club and put wrapping paper over the naked women to celebrate their holy baptism and their holy communion. So like I'll I'm gonna meet him. It's either not real or it is. And he was in an industry called network marketing, super scandalous. A lot of people hate it, a lot of people love it. But the way they were doing it was different. And I said, if this person has created such amazing results in their life, I don't care what it is, as long as it's ethical and it's legal. So I started in the network marketing industry. I still have a big network marketing business, love doing it. Yeah. So that was kind of the foundation. That's what able was able to let me leave. But my passion in network marketing was it was never network marketing per se. And I want to be clear, I love it and I'm thankful for it. But it was always the coach and mentorship aspect, the personnel development, the helping people overcome limiting beliefs and, you know, paint their goals and dreams out to build the life that they really love to live rather than settling for things that maybe they're not passionate about. So that was kind of the impetus of, you know, one of my newer side companies, which is Spark a Change Coaching, you know, which is just really more so coaching outside of that space, if that's not the space people want to be in.

SPEAKER_01: 5:50

So I know as a high achiever myself, many high achievers are great performers, but disconnected internally. So why do you think that success often delays emotional healing instead of accelerating it?

SPEAKER_00: 6:02

When you have culture and you have people celebrating the avatar you're carrying that's creating the success, that very often isn't who you want to be, but continues to be affirmed and affirmed and affirmed, both in financial achievement and and raises and your small business and you're succeeding, but you're not being yourself, very often you trade. And it's usually small cuts. It's not speaking up when you know something or it's going in a direction that might not be the best because there might be more money in that direction. But it you also over-index the things you're good at and you you you you disregard the weaknesses, right? So if you're succeeding and you're driving and you want to stack the points, stack the money, build the company, build a bigger team, whatever it is that you're looking at, if you don't keep in mind that you are human being, and at the end of this, we have to have perspective because what is that money worth on your deathbed? So it's like it's like you're not taking it, you're not gonna find it in your casket. So I see a lot of people, they don't maybe do that exercise to really think. Because if I ask them if they would take a hundred million dollars, but they'd have to be a hundred years old and die tomorrow, no one says yes. But they will take small slippers of their life for way less money. And the same thing, it's just a slow, torturous decline if they're not doing the things that they want to do and keeping in perspective what it matters. I hear a lot of performers, small business owners, particularly, it's like I'm doing this for my family, doing it for my family. And that's the start usually. But if you're doing something for your family and you never see your family and it's ruining your family, at what point do we admit that we're doing it for our ego or for fear or for some other reason? Because when we say one thing and our actions aren't aligned, your actions betray the intentions of your heart. So I think a lot of successful people, they want to succeed, they want to get out of poverty, they want to, you know, they want to be affirmed, they want to feel valuable, they lean into things that are popular and effective, but might not always be the best path for them to go. And they often lose sight of their true values in the process.

SPEAKER_01: 8:03

That is so good. You know, I always think I have it all together, and then there's this moment of fear that comes and takes over. And these have been in the last two weeks. I've been through a lot in the last three years. A lot of things. My dad passed away, my husband had the liver transplant. And Monday, I had last Monday, I had to go to the ER because I had an anxiety attack and I thought I was having heart. Oh man. Yeah. So I started, I think I went through the three hardest years of my life and I did not have an anxiety attack, but now we're coming on the other side of it and I'm working. I have I don't know, this business, I have rental properties, we have a mortgage business, we have 200 people in this company, and I still want to do more things. And I think I'm just building myself up so much because I'm feared of what if something happens and I don't have enough money. What if I go back to the trailer park that I came from?

SPEAKER_00: 8:53

Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

And I can't honestly, I Anthony, I can't figure myself out because I didn't have one panic attack in three years.

SPEAKER_00: 9:01

Yeah and I've had two in a week. Well, I'm not a psychologist, but I could say that I've had existential breaks and I've had, you know, close to similar situations. And I have had a few panic attacks when I was younger. I think a lot of times, just because we're capable doesn't mean it's healthy, you know? And I think particularly it sounds like you come from a similar background where we carry a lot of this time this fear of what if I don't have anything again? What if I don't have and it is so far past what is reality because we're using this paradigm, we're using they have this trauma where at some point it's like, it is enough money. There, it is fine. You know, it's not, it's what what's gonna happen because ultimately the most valuable having the kind of companies that you have. If you did lose everything, the hardest part is developing the skills and the ability to emotionally manage it, you'd rebuild it. So I think that a lot of the times we put ourselves in these positions where we torture ourselves. And a lot of times the anxiety attack doesn't show up in the beginning because you don't even give yourself permission to have the feelings, but they gotta go somewhere. You know, we gotta, we, we gotta put them somewhere. And eventually, if we don't integrate that shadow and be honest about it and we just keep going, going, going, you know, on that treadmill of more, at some point it catches up with all of us, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

I always think that I get through this. You know, I'm studying Napoleon Hill, I'm doing all these things, mindset, mindset, mindset, what you think about, you become, you know, all of I know this all. So why do you think what beliefs around money actually keep people like me and all of you out there stuck, even when you think you're doing everything right?

SPEAKER_00: 10:33

Well, I'll I'll give a personal example. So we had no money. I've been with my wife since we're 20. It's the most important thing I've ever achieved is being successfully married. We've been married for 13 years, and I wouldn't trade any amount of money or success or fame for my marriage. I personally think that that's my version of nightmares. You become super famous, super wealthy, and then you lose your partner in your life. And typically as a male, you date a 20-year-old in your 50s. For me, that is a nightmare. I think that you've made the worst trade in the world. But I remember growing up together, we were really, really broke. I mean, everyone's broke in their early 20s, you know, and you're so broke. And I didn't come from any money. Callan came from an upper middle class life. So we would like steal food out of her family's house after like three months. I'm like, just move in with me. And they're like, what's going on? She loved nursing school. We pursued business. It was, I was not very popular in Callan's family for the first 10 years of us being together. Um, but we'd steal like peanut butter and jellies and stuff out of their out of their cabinets, whatever. But there was a time we had no money. And it would, I'd be like, hey, like, what is this$4 charge at Walgreens? But that didn't stop. The money stacked, the net worth stacked, the income went up to the 1%. And I'm still like, hey, what's this$8.77? Because sometimes we don't realize like we're not in that place anymore. So I think that a lot of times what used to work and these copingness mechanisms and this trauma, what used to be there and needed to be there, we oftentimes don't reassess the damage eventually it's doing, especially when it's no longer relevant. So I think the fear of not having money is a big one, especially when you haven't had any. You know, I think that the thinking the money is gonna fill a hole, it doesn't, or success or fill in the blank. I find when we don't have something, we over-index how important it would be if we had it, and we kind of magnify it to fill things in holes. It's never gonna fill. So I think that money is a game, and I think it needs to be put in its proper place. It is always nicer to win the game than to lose the game. But what we learn in the process and who we become is very important, much more than the end, but also it's still a game. And the game of money is in our life. I think our life is being true to ourselves and doing things that we're passionate about and the people in our life and doing the things and having the emotional margin. Because as an achiever, again, back to that, it's so easy to say I could do more, more, more, more, more, more, more. But ultimately, what margin are we leaving? I almost lost my marriage over that. I almost lost everything in my life. You know, one time my counselor said to me that I was cheating on my wife. And I'm like, listen, I make a lot of mistakes. I don't know if we can curse here, but I'm really effed up. But I don't cheat on my wife. That's one thing I won't do. My dad did that, I won't do that. He said, Well, your business is your mistress. You know, you're you're cheating, you give everything to your what to your business and you leave the scraps to your wife. There's no emotional margin. So a lot of achievers, small business people, and it's hard to be in small business. And I don't want to say that I don't get the struggle. And I coach a lot of people that are in small business. But if we don't leave that emotional margin, if you don't have time to take a walk or go with the dog or be with your kids and the energy to actually do it, what are we doing? I had to change my life where I went, I get my business stuff down, and whatever's left goes to my life. I changed it. I said, My life comes first, and here's my limited working hours. And whatever I can get done, I can either either be more efficient or I need to let go of opportunities because I'm not gonna let my success and this game eat the real part of my life.

SPEAKER_01: 14:03

Oh. I never heard anybody say it like that before. It's so when you're going through things, you know, I I feel like I feel my fill my calendar with so many things to do, but I can't remember any of them. At the end of the day, if you ask me, what did you learn today from those 10 zooms that you were on? And I'd be like, I don't know. I really don't know. So what's something I read about when I was looking at your information about motivation, like how it phased. You teach teach systems and accountability. But why does structure succeed when motivation fails? Because hey, everybody can get motivated. Toby Rob motivate, motivate, motivate, but then you go back home and then what? You have nothing to do because you forget to learn.

SPEAKER_00: 14:43

Right. Motivation's fleeting, you know, you're always motivated and excited about anything new, particularly when you're entrepreneurial. The new thing is fun. But the hardest part, the thing that matters the most, is the middle. You're excited, everyone's cheering for the beginning of the race, and they're cheering for when you finish. You really needed the applause in the middle because the middle is the hard part. It's dark. You're like, Can I make it? And no one's cheering when you're doing that. So I think a large portion of the focus is that we can't say we don't have weaknesses. And you can't make your weaknesses strengths. You can accept them, and then you have to build systems to prevent those from leading you. You need to have accountability around the things that are just a weak spot for you. And you need to build teams of people and have other people's strengths fill in, but it requires a lot of emotional health. A lot of people's egos are too big. They don't want to ask for help, they want to pretend like they're great at everything, they want to keep and it kills you, you know. On that note that you had said, I have a personal rule. If I feel like I don't want to do that meeting, I don't want to do that podcast, I don't want to do it. I know I'm doing too much and I got to start saying no to stuff. I mean, there are committees, there's organizations, there's charity things, there's business things, where it's not if it's good or bad. A lot of times the stuff is good. It's just, is that the thing that I want to spend my time doing? Because I look at my calendar the best that I can as a high achiever and someone with four kids, but it's is this worth doing? Is this getting me to ultimately what I want? Or would an hour of not doing anything sometimes be better? Because when we get addicted to busy, a lot of times we're running from our feelings, we're running from the life, things that actually gotta get fixed. So I have to keep a pulse on me and Callan's relationship because I need margin to hear about my wife's day. My wife's name's Callie to have time and energy for that. And there's not, it's not always going to be so perfect. There's seasons where you're crazy busy and seasons when you're not, but you gotta manage it because otherwise the ultimate outcome for all of us are panic anxiety attacks, is our deteriorating health, is our deteriorating relationships. And I, because I've learned the hard way, I do my best to not have emergencies dictate what I do. I try to be a little bit more intentional, where it's like, all right, I'm starting to get like really tired, like I don't want to do this. This is something I love to do. I'm doing too much. I got to cut back. You know, a lot of people are always like, well, I could have done more. Well, yeah, you always could have done more. You could have done meth for seven days and not slept. But doing more, like doing more in what capacity? I don't know. It's like I could have lost more weight. Yeah, I could have cop chopped my leg off and lost 50 pounds. You know what I mean? So it's not this always, what could I have done more? It's what is my intention? How do I want to look at my life? And I got four young kids. So I could, yeah, I feel very confident that I could go make six, seven figures in a new business and I could build it. At what cost? At the cost of missing the laughs of my my my baby Stella, the last baby that we're gonna have. My wife's not really on board for five. You know, I I mean, I what is that worth? Because I can make money anytime, but I'm only having these kids once. So, and you may have kids, you may not, but it's just being really intentional about what we're doing with it, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 17:53

So I don't have kids. So I think some of that is my excuse. I don't have kids, so I can just work harder, right? I can do more because I don't have kids. And, you know, I was the primary caretaker for my husband for four and a half months. I didn't come to the office. Now I realized, oh, I could just sit here in front of my computer at home forever. And, you know, I do love working, but I'm missing out on a lot. We haven't been on a vacation in three years. And, you know, uh and I but here's something if this question came at the perfect time because comparison. So you see other people, right? You see them out there doing it. I mean, in fact, like I have a partner, he has four kids, he's always living, they're living it up. They're going to the country club, doing the things, having fun, going on vacation. I haven't like like I said, I haven't been on a vacation in three years, like a real right. But I'm watching that from the outside and it's a dangerous trap. And I'm ripping, but I think I'm I'm not having any fun at all. I we're not doing anything. Now, of course, he had a liver transplant eight eight months ago. So we're we're not there yet. So that space, I understand. But what does that comparison steal from myself and other people that have that? I've never been like that before. I'm not angry about it. I'm just like, I wish I could. And I get it.

SPEAKER_00: 19:04

Yeah. I think comparison is one of the worst things. And we all can do it, especially Instagram. You're watching everybody else. You don't have kids, I wish you had kids, you have kids, you're like, I wish I had the freedom, I don't have kids. Because it doesn't matter what direction you're coming from. It's always, I wish I had a lot of money in a big company, and then the people that be like, I wish I had a simpler life. You have to be really clear of what is it that I want, because no one can answer that. That I'm the bill. What if I do that? That's the thing that requires the time, you know. Here's what I do believe if you're not having fun, it's all a waste. What are we doing it for? If you're not enjoying what you're doing, and now there's some limitations, right? We got responsibility, we got the business. That's that's I'm not I'm not being overly idealistic, but let's start working towards changing it because it is largely an orientation. And I hope, if nothing else, if this podcast gets deleted, and it never even goes out, I hope. You, Dion, go on a vacation. I hope you take the time. I hope you'd spend some time to get some clarity for yourself because what you're doing might be exactly what you should be doing. But if you're not clear, then how you don't know. And you're not going to get clarity just from sitting in a room. It comes from action, but you have this huge body of action. And you already have these feelings that maybe I should be taking some more time. Whatever it is, try it. As a high performer, we very often take on way more responsibility that's necessary. And there's a lot of things we're not thinking like an executive, we're thinking like a worker. And we do so many different things that if no one did it, it would probably be fine. And that's a lot where that margin comes in. You know, it's also important to say that it's not that I can't do it, it's that I'm choosing this set of consequences, this set of pros and cons. And no one can choose it for anybody. It's one of the most difficult things. As a coach, I can't tell someone what their life should be. And I can't find the clarity for somebody. I can talk through it, I can notice things for you to think about, but all of us ultimately have to take responsibility of what direction do I want to go? And if you want to work 18 hours a day and it's honest, that's the difference. A lot of people they're not honest with themselves. I'm not here to say that that's wrong. It's wrong for Anthony Spark, but it might not be wrong for someone else. But it requires us to really be honest. And there's usually a lot of limiting beliefs and trauma that are kind of wrapped in here. And all this positive for affirmation we've gotten. What if I don't be that? I was talking the other day at a con at a meeting I had or a training for a few hundred people yesterday. It's like the Chris Farley syndrome, where the thing that you've been affirmed for your entire life, this excess, it's also killing you. And a lot of heavy comedians, they really fear because their identity is like, will I be funny if I'm not heavy? And a lot of times we we create this avatar for what we think other people want or we have to do, but it's killing us. Yeah. And what is it worth? I mean, he's one of my favorite comedians. What is it worth? So I think that we got to have the courage to take some time and be and be clear and be like, here's what I think I want. If you know what you think you want, you can start moving towards it, but you don't know until you do it. And then you find out. Maybe you schedule a few vacations next year. Maybe you cut back your working hours. You might find out that no, I don't even want to do that. And if it's honest, then now you now you go back to doing what you were doing and you're happier and you're more content, you're less confused. Or maybe you're like, man, this is exactly what I want. Maybe I want more of this, maybe I want less of this. But we have to, we have to figure out what we want because life's just gonna keep going by and everyone else's agendas and what everyone else says about us, it's not gonna serve us. We could become successful, we could invite companies, we could but if that's not what you want, really, honestly, you're living a shadow of the life, and I don't think anybody deserves living a shadow of the life they truly should be living.

SPEAKER_01: 22:50

That's good stuff, Anthony. That's really good. So I'm gonna talk to you a little bit about faith because that's clearly a foundation for you with through what I've read. How does faith guide you when things are going well, not just when life is hard?

SPEAKER_00: 23:02

Yeah. So I think that faith comes down to knowing what is it that I believe. And I believe that's a choice. You're gonna choose what you believe. And I think that that should change over time largely, because I find a lot of people, their faith with their political party, it's inherited and it's not yours. You know, I think that it really needs wrestling. I think that you need to be willing to look at contrary opinions and different people, not look away from darkness or look away from controversy or look away from things you disagree with. I think that we need to be willing to have the courage to really look at where's that belief coming from? Is that my belief? Or did someone else give me that belief? Because I think it really comes back again, your faith, whatever it may be for whomever is listening, you know. I because I don't, I don't think it's my place to even, I'm not looking to tell people to believe what I believe. I want them to understand why they believe what they believe. Because I'm not here to say that the atheist is right or the the person that's Jewish is right, the person that's fundamental. I want you to just make sure is the are these my beliefs? Do I have real good reasons for believing them? And am I walking them out because I want to, not because my family said so, not because I'm in a red state and everyone else said I should be that way, regardless of the side of it. So I think that's really important. But faith in yourself, faith in your ability to rebuild something if you lose it. You know, it's the opposite of fear, regardless of someone's beliefs. And fear is a liar and it steals from us like comparison. And it's not that we're not all human, we're all gonna have those different things, but the more that we can put them in their place, I'm about peace. I'm about personal integrity, I'm about saying the thing that might cost you something financially, because the price you pay for not saying the thing that's right costs you more. You know, I I recently watched, you know, for talking about trending pop culture, I watched the P. Diddy 50 Cent documentary. Yeah. And it's just for me, from a coach's point of view and walking through and being around a pe a lot of people that abuse and don't do the right thing. For me, it was a story of how the majority of people are willing to look the other way when something's wrong, when their career or their finances are on the line. And I'm not here to shame them. I'm not, I get it. It is a hard choice. But I think the price we pay by not doing what's right and not saying what's right, not standing up is always greater than any type of financial gain that we get. But that requires some faith that things are gonna work out. That requires faith in ourselves, that requires a risk. But I think that life is risky. I think the riskiest thing is not taking the risks.

SPEAKER_01: 25:35

Yeah, I I agree with you on that 100%. So, what is the biggest warning sign that someone is succeeding publicly but losing privately?

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

You hate what you're doing, you're not enjoying it the way you used to, you're not having fun. You are have a lot of damage in other pairs. You have one area of your life that's winning, that's success financial component, but you're lacking in everything else. It usually shows up as apathy. Like you just don't, it's like a low grade depression. And you know it. You know it inside. You're living a life that has been serving you or served you for a season or someone else, but you just know it's not right. One of my favorite books I read this year is called The Midlife Passage. I keep forgetting the author. We'll put it in the notes. I'm sure you just you're super on top of it. So um, I had it in my newsletter the other day, but it it's a reframing of the midlife crisis, and that could be 50s, that could be 20s. It depends. But it's just it's a it's a second adulthood. It's moving into that personal, and it's young in psychology. I'm a big Carl Junge fan, but it's moving into who am I supposed to be? What's the life that I want to live? Not what everyone said, not what made me moaning. It's who am I supposed to be? And a lot of people, they don't make that journey. They don't get on the boat and leave the shore where it's dangerous because they think it's safer on shore, but I think it's much more dangerous not finding out who you're meant to be in the life you're meant to live. But apathy, not having fun. Comparison a lot of the times, because you're trying to you you want something someone else has and you can do it. A lot of people say, I can't. I don't think that we should be saying can or can't. We should say, is that the thing I want? Is that the right is should I do it or shouldn't I do it? There's pros and cons. But there isn't an objective right path. I don't think that there, I don't believe in a soulmate. I believe you pick someone and they become your soulmate because you chose. I don't believe in this Nicholas Sparks bullshit, you know, a guy's also divorced. That's that's fiction. It's nice fiction. You know, there's also not a right path for you. You know, you own a business, you close a business, you win at the business, you fail at the business, you're a school teacher, you're an entrepreneur, you have kids, you don't have kids, you get married. There isn't a right choice, but make your choice and understand what the consequences are. And if you don't like it, change it, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 27:45

Yeah, because we get to do that. That is something that we as human beings get to do. Change it.

SPEAKER_00: 27:50

I mean, the reality is it's not that you can't. You could go on 10 vacations, it sounds like. I mean, some people financially can't, but it sounds to me like you could. You could close everything down and rebuild something new. You could we can do it, but we have to have the courage to be willing to explore some of those things. There shouldn't be any area or thought or belief, in my opinion, that that's off limits. I'm not willing to re-reexamine that. Yeah. Because it creates, it makes it we build a prison that we have to live in, and we're both the prisoner and the guard, and then we're blaming ourselves basically in another version of ourselves for keeping us. No one is keeping us here. There are constraints, there is money, there's responsibility. Again, not too idealistic, but we do need to take responsibility to say that I can change it. I I'm the one that put me in this jail.

SPEAKER_01: 28:33

Yeah, for sure. I always say that, you know, if I had to start all over again from scratch, I know I could do it. You know, but I'm not even giving myself credit for what I do. So yeah, and you know, it's never enough. I'm always trying for more, trying to do the type of that, but I'm I'm missing I'm missing out on life. And that's where that comparison thing, it it it eats you alive because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense because I get the choice to do it this way. And I choose to sit on 10 uh Zooms every week about AI that doesn't make me money. It makes me more wishing, but I'm not making money from it. I'm just sitting there learning more stuff that's going in my brain. But thank you for that. So, what's next for you and where can people connect with you, your coaching, your work, the Phoenix Manifesto? Talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

Uh, I'll say three things. First off, what's next? I hope Dion's kinder to herself because you seem so successful and so wonderful. I hope you treat yourself better for this next year. I hope you give yourself margin. You know, a really great book is The Gap in the Game. Um talks about, yeah, really good one. I strongly recommend anyone read that. But if we chase the horizon, as soon as we get to it, it moves. And this never-ending chase of more is such a trap, such a trap. If I never make any more money than I'm making now, I don't need any more money. I'm happy to make more. If you got money you don't want, I'm happy to take it, but I don't need any more. And if I never made any more, I got everything I want in my life. And if I lost my money, I'd go do something else. But I don't need more. I'm happy to have more, I'm happy to get better, I'm happy to serve more people, but I don't need any more. And I hope I hope that you explore that for yourself. Contact me. Um, I have a newsletter letter daily, sparkachangecoaching.com. You can check that out. Highly recommend. I get a free PDF of my book if you sign up. I have a daily email that goes out, song I'm listening to, book I'm reading, you know, and some notes in there, some good thoughts, it'd be super helpful. If you want to do a one-on-one coaching engagement, I'm only doing it for a certain number of people. You know, this is probably like my 20th or 30th thing, because again, it's a passion thing. So I could say, I'm not gonna sell you that one-year contract, and I'm gonna be way, way, way less expensive than I should be, but our values have to align. It has to make sense. But if you want to book a discovery call, love to. You at the guts, you want to reach out to me. My personal cell phone is 631-327-2241. I've been giving that my book and every podcast I'm on. I'm not gonna worry about the 0.001% of lunatics are gonna bother me for the 99.99% of people that got the guts to reach out if I could help serve in any way. But my email list is the most traditional. You can book a discovery call on my on my site. But if you want to text me, I dare you. 99.9% of people never do. Um, but if I could be of any service, you know, my goal, I'm happy to make more money and the coaching thing will make extra money. But the primary is to be able to make a difference, to do something that I love to do and to serve the right people that I'm a good fit for. Because just like an ice cream store, I'm not everyone's flavor. You know, I mean, I don't like, I don't know why people eat mint choke. The chip ice cream tastes like toothpaste, my wife's favorite. But we all got preferences, different strokes, different folks. The third thing I'll say, and lastly before I forget, is please reach out to Dion if this podcast and any episode she's done has helped you. Because you spend all this time and you spend all this effort and all this money, and so many people get a lot out of it, and you think that everyone's telling the person doing it, and they aren't. So you get five or 10 texts from other people that will help Dion do the next six or 12 months and talk about the impact and talk about what it's meant for you and talk about the things that have helped. But I would definitely get an email or a message out to Dion because it's usually a very thankless thing because you're talking in a closed room and no one's there and you can't hear the impact it's making.

SPEAKER_01: 32:12

Yeah, you sure can. Thank you for saying that because you really don't hear much about it. So, for all of you out there, today's episode challenged you or stirred something in you like it has in me, or even name something you've been avoiding. Don't keep it to yourself. Share it with someone who needs the permission to build differently and know that we're all going through things and there is a way out. I promise there is. You just have to believe enough in yourself and use the faith over fear. That's really what you have to do at the end of the day. So thank you so much, Anthony. It's been a pleasure getting to know you. Loved it, and I hope to see you soon.

SPEAKER_00: 32:46

I look forward to it. Thanks again. Bye, everybody.