Retiring at 48, Following Laughter, and Finding Purpose | Mark Vessey

In this episode of the Behind the Village Podcast, we explore early retirement, work‑life balance, and how to choose presence and purpose even when life takes unexpected turns. Our guest today, Mark Vessey, shares a candid story about retiring before 50, navigating a career pivot from burnout to small‑business ownership, earning a commercial captain’s license, and confronting a stage 4 pancreatic cancer diagnosis.

Please note that this transcript was made using AI and it may not be entirely accurate.

00;00;03;06 – 00;00;05;27
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You’re listening to the Behind the Village podcast,

00;00;06;19 – 00;00;11;25
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Where we invite you to join us on a journey to understand how to live a life worth living.

00;00;12;21 – 00;00;32;09
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Mark is someone who’s been part of my life and my family’s life for many years. When I first asked Mark Vessey to be a guest on our podcast, his exact response was, interestingly enough, three months ago it would have been an outright no. But as he continued, he said that due to recent events in his life, he would be happy to join us.

00;00;32;09 – 00;00;37;24
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Mark began his working life by running away and joining the circus at 16 years old.

00;00;38;07 – 00;00;52;08
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He then pursued marine navigation in college, eventually making his way to Aurelia. Mark ran the kitchen at brewery Bay Food Company for a number of years before burning out and adjusting to his most recent career as the owner of Memorial Auto Services.

00;00;52;10 – 00;01;00;23
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He achieved his ultimate goal of retiring before the age of 50, and three months after retirement was given a cancer diagnosis that changed everything.

00;01;03;15 – 00;01;23;03
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I was running the kitchen at brewery Bay Food Company for for a number of years, and both burnt out doing that. Mac sold on my salary, needed a career change, and auto mechanics was something I knew nothing about. Had no involvement in. But it was an affordable way to to go back to school and, and change my career path.

00;01;23;03 – 00;01;57;23
Unknown
So hopped on board, tried it out, and, went from there. Wow, that’s really cool. That, I don’t think I knew that that you had this whole, like, circus career. Yeah, I was that I have I’ll have to go through the photo album with you sometime. Oh, please. I would love to see it. Yeah, I just I love hearing that because it’s kind of one of the things that I feel like we’re on that path a little bit too, in terms of, like, switching careers and like you get to a point where you have burnt out or you’ve capped out or you know, you’ve hit that point.

00;01;57;23 – 00;02;13;13
Unknown
It’s not fun anymore. Like, it’s not, you know, it’s not the same. It doesn’t work the same. I I’ll be honest with you, that is 100% how I’ve lived my life. If it’s not entertaining me and it’s not making me giggle, I’m not going to do it. I like it, you know, I mean how did you end up like having that.

00;02;13;13 – 00;02;35;12
Unknown
Is this just instinctual or is this something that you kind of learn like it’s just who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. It’s just, you know, you got to have fun. You have to enjoy what we’re doing. Absolutely. That’s super cool. I just, I don’t know, I feel like that resonates with me. Is just like trying to find things in life that are going to give me that fulfillment, you know?

00;02;35;14 – 00;02;47;14
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, we’ll get to it. We’re not we’re not quite there in the conversation yet, but even the retirement job at, it took me back 30 years, to where I started with college, with Emory nav program. So

00;02;51;10 – 00;02;59;14
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While connecting and chatting about his life and his past. We wanted to know what it was like to juggle work and a young family.

00;03;02;15 – 00;03;27;25
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The biggest thing for us being, sort of a double income young family, around work was the cost of daycare. That was our biggest struggle, with both of us sort of working a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job, we had no option other than, early daycare for the kids. So you by the time they were basically after, the one year Matt leave, they were straight into full time daycare.

00;03;27;27 – 00;03;50;13
Unknown
And I think at one point we were spending close to 30,000 a year, for the two kids in full time daycare. Yeah. And, and as a young couple, new home, new our jobs that that was, a pretty hefty expense. Jan at one time considered, not working or going down to very part time and being a stay at home mom with the children.

00;03;50;13 – 00;04;11;16
Unknown
And she said, you know, it’ll save us the daycare expense. And at that time, I kind of thought, you know what? We’re still going to lose. Right now, we’re losing 50% of her income towards, childcare. If she stays home, we lose 100%. So that’s going to, that’s going to tap into our, you know, groceries and fund money and, and even clothing and footwear for the kids, stuff like that.

00;04;11;16 – 00;04;30;13
Unknown
So it’s no we in that sense, we both need to be working full time. And unfortunately we have to sacrifice that time with the children. And and that was tough for both of us, just not being as present as early parents as we would have liked to have been. Yeah, absolutely. That’s a tough one. I found that for sure.

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Unknown
To to some degree it is modern society. That’s just how it is nowadays.

00;04;35;02 – 00;04;44;04
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I bought the shop in 2008, and my first was born in 2009, so by the time I had kids, I was already a business owner.

00;04;44;06 – 00;05;06;09
Unknown
It allowed me to grant me a lot of freedom to come and go as I please, to be more present and more available for the kids. With pick up and drop off around appointments, schedules, birthdays, and I mean early stages. As a business owner, I had to be very present there. I couldn’t just stop and run. But, when I could take off for ten minutes, I could tell the staff, hey, you know, got to get the kids to school.

00;05;06;09 – 00;05;23;29
Unknown
I’ve got to be here. I got to be. I could come and go a lot more readily than I could had I been working for somebody else. So that definitely was a benefit. And and did make it a lot easier to transition into family life because I did have that little extra freedom

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As parents ourselves, we often feel this pressure to try and give our kids everything. Everything they want. Everything we didn’t have all of our attention. We’re losing sight of the bigger picture and what’s truly the most important.

00;05;42;19 – 00;06;03;13
Unknown
probably the key takeaway that I learned going through it all was you can do these big, massive, incredible birthday parties for the kids. You can spoil them rotten. At the end of the day, sometimes it’s that little comment in the vehicle going down the road that passed over you.

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Unknown
You didn’t even notice it. But that is the kid’s fondest memory. Just that one little snippet of conversation that they couldn’t stop giggling and belly laughing over. And to them, that’s going to be their biggest, most important memory. So we need to stop wasting our time on trying to go over and above and making sure that everything’s perfect.

00;06;20;26 – 00;06;41;00
Unknown
Sometimes it’s just being present to being in the moment with the children that matter. The most. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, because it’s true. Like you, you, you. That’s kind of the idea of what we’re trying to figure out is like, how do we how do you slow down? How do you be present? How do you actually, you know, pay attention to the things that matter, right?

00;06;41;02 – 00;07;01;07
Unknown
Yeah. It’s so easy to get caught up in that. And, you know, I got to work more. I got to do this more. I got you know, we got to do birthday parties. We got to do this, you know, and it’s we don’t have to. Yeah, yeah. No, it’s the, it’s the moments that matter, you know, and it’s, a lot of times it’s the little moments that we don’t even recognize.

00;07;01;07 – 00;07;22;17
Unknown
So that are the most important. And sometimes what seems the most important to you is completely insignificant, to be it your partner, your employee, or the child themselves that it it’s the hard part is figuring out which moments are the important ones. Yeah. And how do you, how do you, how do you figure that out for your own life.

00;07;22;20 – 00;07;45;09
Unknown
It’s a work in progress. Yeah. You know I, I, I will never profess to have the secret of the key to that answer. It is definitely a work in progress. But what I’m recognizing is just paying attention to the reaction of my kids. You know, I just, my my 14 year old is such a sarcastic, dark little monster.

00;07;45;09 – 00;08;00;10
Unknown
She’s amazing. I love her to death, but sometimes it’s just that sly little grin or that sideway glance that she gives me. It’s like, oh, yeah, she like that? Oh, there it is. Yeah, there it is. And that’s the answer right there. And that’s all the answer I need.

00;08;03;01 – 00;08;23;00
Unknown
With so much going on in our lives, one of the struggles that June and I have is how often we talk about business outside of business hours. Honestly, there was a stretch where June and I only related to each other and spoke about business, and it’s only recently where we’ve discovered that there’s actually so many other things that we could be talking about.

00;08;23;11 – 00;08;28;18
Unknown
June and I also really struggle with letting work issues consume our brain space far longer than they should.

00;08;28;22 – 00;08;30;27
Unknown
Marc had some great insight about that.

00;08;33;01 – 00;08;40;11
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for the most part. Come 5 p.m., I turned my business brain off.

00;08;40;14 – 00;08;56;28
Unknown
And I very much tried to keep a separation between home and business. Even for for a number of years, we lived directly above the shop and everybody asked, you know, how is it? How do you keep business at home? Separated? You said the minute I walk out the door of the shop and head up to my apartment, is businesses closed for the day?

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Unknown
It’s not on my thought. It’s, it’s off my radar. It’s not something I’m concerned with. Now it’s all about family time. And definitely there were times where phone calls would come in. Bankers, lawyers, whoever, whatever the case may be. There were definitely times where I couldn’t keep that separation. In those instances, it would just be deal with it, get it done.

00;09;20;08 – 00;09;40;19
Unknown
Don’t let it drag out and back to the family as quickly as possible. One of the one of the things I always tell my kids and, and I’ve been telling them this for years, and it’s something I still try and reinforce with them, is don’t stress over the things that you can’t control. You need to focus on what is in your control.

00;09;40;21 – 00;10;02;02
Unknown
That first and foremost about the only thing that you are in 100% control of is how you choose to react and respond to a situation. When something arises from something comes up, you can choose to go off the handle, blow it out of proportion, let it bring you down, stress you out, or you can choose to look at that situation and go, you know what?

00;10;02;04 – 00;10;21;03
Unknown
Only one aspect of that is in my control. So I’m going to focus on that point. All of the the points in this situation that are going to drag me down and stress me out, nothing I can do about it out of my control. So no point focusing on that. Let’s put my focus on my energy, on the positives, on the parts that I can improve and make a change to.

00;10;21;06 – 00;10;47;15
Unknown
And by focusing on those areas, I was able to see progress and change. If I start focusing on all the negative stuff that I can’t change, it’s out of control. But, unattainable. I’m wasting my time is spinning my wheels, so let’s not expend that energy in that direction. Let’s just shut down those areas and focus on the areas that we definitely can move forward and.

00;10;47;17 – 00;11;05;27
Unknown
The other stuff that’s going to be there, that stress from work. It’ll be there in 20 minutes after I get the kids tucked in. You know, back of my mind, I’m sure I’m I’m mulling over and there is stuff going on, you know, how am I going to handle this? What am I? But I try not to let that drag my focus and attention away from the children.

00;11;05;27 – 00;11;08;23
Unknown
In that moment.

00;11;08;26 – 00;11;33;26
Unknown
Something that was, said to me a little while back, and it said it really resonated with me very strongly. Say there’s, 1440 minutes in every single day. Of those 1440 minutes, you may start your day. You open your emails while you’re having your morning coffee, you get that one email that just sets you off and puts you in a bad mood.

00;11;33;28 – 00;11;58;04
Unknown
That one email. Are you going to take your five ten minutes, absorb it, realize it, recognize it, then move on? Or are you going to let that email nag at you and nip at you in two at you all day long? What I’ve learned in that 1440 minutes and every single day I’m going to give that email, that little upsetting piece of information I’m going to allow it five minutes of my time.

00;11;58;06 – 00;12;21;24
Unknown
It’s only going to interrupt my day for five minutes. I have the rest of those 1440 minutes to improve my day to move forward or hike, or I could choose to let that one email ruin 260 minutes of my day. Or I could let that email ruin half of my day. That’s my decision. That’s up to me.

00;12;21;26 – 00;12;46;11
Unknown
And right. Absolutely. I am 100% in control of how much of my time, of my day, of my energy is expended over that email. It’s only worth five minutes of my time. Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve I’ve never actually thought about the fact like, you know how many minutes there are, but there is like there’s a lot of minutes obviously.

00;12;46;15 – 00;13;07;07
Unknown
Right. It’s and just thinking about it from that minute perspective, just how much time you spend mulling things over or stressing out or like whatever and how many minutes it actually takes and you start saying, oh, it’s like hundreds like it’s, you know, or whatever it is. And it’s like, that’s not, that’s not good. Like, this is not where you should be focusing your time, your attention.

00;13;07;07 – 00;13;33;24
Unknown
Right. Like that’s yeah, yeah. That’s crazy. And then that’s pretty cool. And I mean, you factor in how many minutes of those you spend sleeping, resting, relaxing, unwinding. We don’t have those extra minutes to give away to to those wasted moments energies, you know? So it’s, accept it, realize it, move on.

00;13;36;22 – 00;13;41;29
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With some fantastic thoughts and insight that has already shaped the way we’re living in approaching business.

00;13;41;29 – 00;13;50;11
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We wanted to hear about the incredible moment of achieving retirement before 50, and seeing his excitement lead him in a direction that connected to his past.

00;13;52;15 – 00;13;55;07
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a long term goal.

00;13;55;07 – 00;14;33;24
Unknown
I wanted to be retired by 50. That was, that was long term. I was able to achieve retirement, in my 48th year. Which was awesome. I’m unbelievable. So, Yeah, it was exceptional. I had absolutely zero plans. No ambition. Everybody said, what are you doing next? And I said, I have no idea. I’m going to wait until something sort of piques my interest, something, makes me laugh or giggle and, and I’ll go with it and I’ll carry on that path until something else excites me more or pulls me in a different direction.

00;14;33;27 – 00;15;00;14
Unknown
But my intent through retirement was simply do whatever keeps me entertained, keeps me laughing. Allows me time with, with my wife and my kids. Allows me time with my parents. I mean, thankfully, we still have all of our parents in our lives, and, I wanted the the time to to be with everybody, make those memories, those moments and make them all count.

00;15;00;16 – 00;15;28;08
Unknown
And as you end up doing after retirement, what did you find? So. Flipping through stupid videos on Facebook. The, an ad for Santa’s Village is looking for boat captains. Apply here. I clicked on apply now. A couple of days later, the, the hiring manager called me and he said, we have never had an applicant this full, this prepared for the position we’re trying to fill.

00;15;28;08 – 00;15;33;27
Unknown
And it was a result of the Marina program I took 30 years ago.

00;15;34;00 – 00;15;53;29
Unknown
And, it’s awesome. Full circle. Yeah, yeah. And it was. You’ve seen the boat. You know what it looks like? It was just. Oh, my God, I’m going to be captain of that boat. It was just the surf. Oh, it was, it was a big, sort of a haha. Was, it was a joke. It was hysterical.

00;15;54;05 – 00;16;20;13
Unknown
And it was exactly what I needed. It was exactly what I was looking for. And they ended up, getting me through the training and, and licensed with Transport Canada is, what with the its master mariner restricted under 60 gross ton, restricted waterways was my was the official captain’s license. I got so basically commercial captain on boats under 60 gross tons.

00;16;20;15 – 00;16;41;19
Unknown
I probably the proudest moment in anything I had accomplished in my life was getting that captain’s license, and, it cool it it all started off as a joke, just on a whim, but I love I love that that way of living. Right. That way of of just outlook on life to just, you know, whatever makes you giggle, whatever makes.

00;16;41;21 – 00;16;45;07
Unknown
Yeah, it’s fun. Just go for it because you never know what’s going to happen, right?

00;16;47;28 – 00;16;54;25
Unknown
Unfortunately, after enjoying only three months of life post retirement, Mark received some really devastating news.

00;16;56;29 – 00;17;02;10
Unknown
Yeah. So and I mean, realistically, I’ve been chasing this for this coming Christmas.

00;17;02;10 – 00;17;24;28
Unknown
It’ll be three years. I’ve just had random abdominal and back pain. You know, three years ago, I had all the scopes done. It seemed like nothing major. You know, maybe a little surgery. If it was an ulcer or something to that effect. But, you know, not done. No big deal. And, ended up a ten day stay in the hospital.

00;17;25;00 – 00;17;56;01
Unknown
The biopsy came back as stage four pancreatic cancer. And it’s basically they’ve given me 9 to 11 months. That was August 1st. Wow, wow. So from from retirement to May, to August 1st. Wow. Yeah. Plans changed. Plans change hard and fast. What changed for you? I quit work immediately. I’m on, high enough levels to avoid opioids.

00;17;56;01 – 00;18;23;12
Unknown
I probably shouldn’t be driving a commercial vessel, but, I can start getting into what they refer to as chemo brain. Just, sort of foggy. Not clear thoughts on, both the vessels that I was running. Things can happen quickly, and I need to be of clear mind and and be ready to to move and react very, very quickly for the safety of myself and the vessel and every passenger on board.

00;18;23;15 – 00;18;41;25
Unknown
And I just I made the conscientious decision with, with the treatment and the diagnosis that, you know what I don’t feel I’m 100% in charge of all of the faculties that I need to be to be in command of the vessel the way I should be. So we’re just calling it and, and I quit work completely.

00;18;41;25 – 00;19;15;23
Unknown
I’m. I’m, homebound. Stay at home, dad. I guess. Now for two teenagers. Yeah, yeah. What was that shift like going from? Because it happened so close together in time that, you know, the retirement, almost a celebratory, like you had one path and then from one day to the next, it was a completely different situation. I very, very quickly and I’m not sure why I resigned myself to the fact or accepted my fate.

00;19;15;26 – 00;19;36;14
Unknown
In that I just said, you know what? I’m going to die. This is going to kill me. And it could be very quickly. I mean, long and short. We just celebrated my birthday, middle of August, where we’re planning Thanksgiving and every celebration that, that we’re planning for. Right now, I’m, I’m very aware that this very well could be my last.

00;19;36;14 – 00;19;54;27
Unknown
It could be my last birthday. It could be my last Thanksgiving. This Christmas, I may not even make it to Christmas. We just don’t know that. And that’s that’s the way the beast of pancreatic cancer works. I know they’ve given me a term of 11, 9 to 11 months. I might get six weeks. I might get two years.

00;19;54;27 – 00;20;17;24
Unknown
We just don’t know. It’s an educated guess. Pancreatic cancer is different in everybody. It’s very, very aggressive. It’s very fast moving. And, and there is no cure for it. That’s that’s the long and short. And I just took that information and and I accepted it. I resigned myself that this is my fate to some degree. I feel like I got off lucky.

00;20;17;24 – 00;20;44;03
Unknown
I’ve got the easy end of this whole situation. It’s my family that’s got to live on without me. My parents that have to lose a son. And no parent should ever have to bury a child. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. That the hardest one for me was. I want to see my daughter graduate high school. Yeah, yeah.

00;20;44;05 – 00;20;58;18
Unknown
And that that hit me hard. Best best case scenario, I will not be around for her graduation. She just a grade nine, and I won’t get 4 to 5 years.

00;20;58;21 – 00;21;18;23
Unknown
Know stuff. And I’m I’m more heartbroken for them than I’m worried about myself. I’ve got a finality. I’ve got an end. And I I’m okay with that. I’ve accepted that.

00;21;18;26 – 00;21;46;23
Unknown
And, And that made it a hell of a lot easier for me to move forward with the fact that I won’t say I don’t care about myself, but I don’t care what my fate of it is, what it is. Again, it’s it comes back to that. What I was saying not too long ago, that I can only worry about the things that I can make a change to that, that that I can affect that this I can’t.

00;21;46;26 – 00;22;10;24
Unknown
Yeah. And in speaking the way I am right now and in the candid conversation, I haven’t given up. And a lot of people look at and my attitude is, oh, don’t give up, don’t give up. And it’s like, I haven’t given up. I’ve accepted the fate. But yeah, but is and the fate is inevitable. Whether it’s two months, six months, 18 months, it’s inevitable.

00;22;10;24 – 00;22;33;28
Unknown
And I’ve accepted that. Having said that, it doesn’t mean I’ve stopped fighting. It doesn’t mean that I’m not going to try and and prolong it. I know I can’t beat it. That’s a reality. I mean, it’s less than a 1% chance that I’ll get five years. Statistically, I’ve always said I’m not. I’m not a stat. I’m not a number.

00;22;34;00 – 00;22;44;14
Unknown
I never have been. I’ve always, I’ve always proven that wrong. You know, when somebody says you’ll never do that, you can’t do that and screw you. Watch me hold my beer.

00;22;44;17 – 00;23;09;04
Unknown
You know, it’s, I’ve never been one to to be put down or told. You can’t, You say that’s impossible. Well, watch me. You just challenge me. And it’s no different in this situation. In this instance. And it’s really difficult watching, watching my family members and and all of them, you know, different levels of family.

00;23;09;07 – 00;23;31;19
Unknown
My brother’s reaction. We’ve somewhat been estranged for years, you know, hardly ever talk. And unless, my brother needed car repairs, like, we just. We went different paths. We we didn’t see each other other than holidays. The minute I got the diagnosis, he was here. He was in my driveway. Friends I haven’t seen in 30 years.

00;23;31;21 – 00;24;02;03
Unknown
My high school sweethearts flying in next or this coming Friday. She’s spending the weekend with us. You know, that’s we haven’t seen each other since 2001, I think was the last time, we dated through the mid-nineties. But we we both formative years had a profound impact on each other’s lives, who we are today. A lot of that comes from the relationship we had in that young, carefree teenage, relationship.

00;24;02;03 – 00;24;27;08
Unknown
We had, so, yeah, when she heard the diagnosis, it it definitely hit hard. But to have that support, to have that kindness, to have that care and love around me is it’s definitely, made things easier. And when you think about it because as you’re speaking, my mind is going to is, you know, we all have a point in time, but it’s unknown when it’s going to be our turn.

00;24;27;08 – 00;24;49;26
Unknown
Right? It’s it’s just that you’ve been given a timeline and, you know, made it easier. And look at what you’re choosing to focus on and look at the relationships that are coming out of the woodwork because of a connection that you’ve had. Yeah, that you haven’t, you know, necessarily fostered over the years because we all get distracted and, you know, life is life and you get busy.

00;24;49;26 – 00;25;09;25
Unknown
But, you know, if we all knew, what change would that make you like? What would we focus on? Like if we decided to be more present, if we decided to actually pay attention to the things that we care about? Just thinking about that idea. Right. Like, what would we what would we do? Right? What would we how would we spend our time?

00;25;09;25 – 00;25;33;14
Unknown
Would be would it be different than the way that we’re spending it now, day to day? Just kind of as if, yeah, I got plenty of time. I got, you know, 20, 40 years still. Right? Like 2 to 2 as opposed to, like, what are you doing right now? To be present, to be happy, to be, you know, and interestingly enough, in the past week, I’ve really recognized what the answer to that question was.

00;25;33;16 – 00;26;09;21
Unknown
If you had asked me that a couple of weeks ago, I would have hemmed and hawed a little bit. And, and I would have really known what to say to you. What I found in the last week, or recognized, I suppose, is negativity brings me down. I have no time for it. In conversation. When somebody focuses on the negative or we’re telling a story about an event that happened and it’s all about, oh, this negative, this negative, this individual came in or this comment was made.

00;26;09;24 – 00;26;27;26
Unknown
Shut up. I don’t want to hear it. I want to hear the fun part of the story. Yeah, yeah, I want to hear how it ended. I want to hear, what everybody was wearing. I want to hear both the jokes that were told. I want to hear about the memories that were made. I don’t care about the neighbor that complained about the noise and called the cops.

00;26;27;26 – 00;27;07;27
Unknown
I don’t care unless it turned into a funny story. Yeah, I don’t care. And I just, I have absolutely no time, ambition or energy at this stage in my life for, for negativity or down talk. It just like it’s no longer a part of who I want to be. And I think human nature, we tend to hold on to the negatives because it’s a lot easier to focus on that, than it is to to recognize and appreciate the positives and that that’s been a huge shift for me.

00;27;08;00 – 00;27;26;21
Unknown
And it ties back to what you were saying about the minutes we have every day. Right? Like how many of those minutes are we giving to negativity? Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, even, even trying to get the kids tucked into bed and they’re screaming and crying and you’re stressing about, oh my God, I should be at my computer doing the work.

00;27;26;24 – 00;27;45;11
Unknown
And you know what? We take away the negativity and we focus on the positives, and we get that child’s smiling and giggling doing what they’re going to do. The criminal curl up in your arms, you’re both going to feel warm and fuzzy and they’ll fall asleep. With any luck. With any luck, you might get that nap you didn’t realize you needed with them for half an hour.

00;27;45;14 – 00;27;54;19
Unknown
Yep. And and, and that moment you wake up and you go, you know what? I’ve wasted the time, but it was worth every goddamn second.

00;27;56;23 – 00;28;20;16
Unknown
That was heavy. It was difficult to hear, but honest and moving. Mark spoke from such an unfiltered place that we felt it was important to keep the conversation in. He has such great insight into life and what is truly important, coming from a perspective of having limited time left.

00;28;20;19 – 00;28;24;16
Unknown
We asked if he had any other nuggets or life lessons to share.

00;28;26;20 – 00;28;45;21
Unknown
I came to a realization, so many of us in our life were trying to become that successful individual. We have this, this goal that we want to achieve, and it’s, you know, before I die, I want to be this individual. And I recognized and realized that every one of us on this planet are just in it.

00;28;45;21 – 00;29;11;14
Unknown
We’re insignificant in the big picture. It doesn’t matter what we hope to achieve, what we strive to achieve. At the end of the day, the only one we ultimately truly matter to are the ones in our immediate circle. So the only goal, the only ambition that I need to achieve to satisfy the people in my immediate circle is happiness.

00;29;11;16 – 00;29;33;15
Unknown
Yeah. Happiness. If we don’t have that, if we’re striving for this big ultimate goal and we’re giving up, we’re sacrificing happiness. What what are we doing? Why? What’s the point then? What are we doing? What is the point? And you just asked me that. You said, you know what is my point? And the point is to be happy.

00;29;33;18 – 00;29;44;05
Unknown
And to give and to love and to have that happiness around you and, and those friends and that support around you. At the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.

00;29;44;05 – 00;29;53;06
Unknown
You know what. I’m just I just have in the back of my mind like there’s so many things that you, that you just kind of mentioned that are like really, really powerful.

00;29;53;06 – 00;30;16;09
Unknown
I wonder how, if there’s any other types of outlook that changed after, you know, you know, knowing what you know now about your diagnosis and stuff like that. Is there any other outlooks that you kind of use? Do you see life differently? You know, it’s it’s perception. And, and my son and I get into this conversation on a fairly regular basis.

00;30;16;11 – 00;30;51;06
Unknown
He’s 16 years old. He’s a very, very old soul. Just to put a little bit of context, and he’s, he’s high functioning autistic, which you would probably never notice on the daily with him. But he does definitely have a difficult time, controlling emotional response, to certain situations. So I’m working very hard with him to, to teach him that the only thing you’re ultimately in control of is how you choose to respond to that situation.

00;30;51;08 – 00;31;13;22
Unknown
And, and normally I’ll give him five, ten minutes. Just go calm down. Think about it. He comes back and he says, okay, here’s how I’m feeling. And we realize that his response to my response are so ultimately different because of perception. And it’s all in how we’re looking at the same statement comment situations, scenario, whatever it may be.

00;31;13;24 – 00;31;37;07
Unknown
We’re looking at the same thing but we’re looking at it. He’s looking in the front window and I’m looking in the back window. And we’re seeing it differently. So walk around, look in the other window have a little different perspective. Instead of making a snap decision, make an informed decision, an informed response. Yeah.

00;31;40;07 – 00;31;47;04
Unknown
We asked Mark to look back and talk to us about the things he was proud of, and some of the things he regrets.

00;31;49;08 – 00;32;21;15
Unknown
What are the things I’m proud of? Yeah, well, I definitely my children. Yeah. That definitely my children. The, the relationship I’m in now is, incredible. That is definitely something I’m proud of. It’s something I, I never knew existed. My parents, I mean, I’m so proud of my parents.

00;32;21;18 – 00;32;44;25
Unknown
No, ultimately, like I said, that captain’s license, that was that was a huge point of pride for me. All all of the other ridiculous things, I did in life, it it was just it was. That’s what I was doing. That’s what made me smile at the time. It wasn’t, it wasn’t necessarily accomplishments. It wasn’t a checklist I was trying to achieve.

00;32;44;27 – 00;33;09;02
Unknown
I was very, very proud of the shop, and, And the little likes to joke. My little empire. I was very proud of that. That was, quite an accomplishment, considering I came into it with basically nothing and built it on my own. It, that that definitely was a point of pride, you know, I don’t know, you don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to, but, like, do you have any regrets?

00;33;09;04 – 00;33;27;26
Unknown
I’m going to say yes and no to that question. Yes. There are definitely some things that I look back on and go, wow, I wish I had done some things differently. At the end of the day, I’m so satisfied. Satisfied with the life that I live that no, I can’t regret anything because every decision I made brought me to today.

00;33;27;29 – 00;33;59;24
Unknown
Yeah. So I’m not going to call them regrets. What? I have done a few things differently. Absolutely. But I don’t regret it. Because if I hadn’t made the choices I had made at that particular moment, I wouldn’t be here today. Yeah, exactly. You know, I like I like your way of kind of like looking at things of just what makes me smile, what makes me giggle, what makes me, you know, and just following that, like, I feel like everybody needs something to follow on, like, you know, for for for choices or for whatever.

00;33;59;24 – 00;34;22;07
Unknown
There’s something that, you know, that you believe in or that you care about that’s going to take you to where, hopefully where you want to be right in life. Because that’s what you you know, that’s what you find important. Well, at the end of the day, if I’m doing something that makes me giggle but makes me smile when I come home, I’m going to be a better person to to my family.

00;34;22;09 – 00;34;47;11
Unknown
If I’m going to a job that makes me absolutely miserable and, and brings me down and wears me out, who am I going to be when I come home? I’m going to be that monster. That’s not who my family deserves. It’s not who I deserve. And it’s not the life I want to live. So, I’m going to choose to do things that make me giggle.

00;34;47;13 – 00;35;07;26
Unknown
And and make me smile and make me a better man and husband and father and son. And it’s simply by having fun. It’s really not a bad outlook. All I have to be to be the man I want to be is have fun.

00;35;07;26 – 00;35;13;17
Unknown
Too often. Too often we get, we get tied up in life, we get carried away, and,

00;35;13;20 – 00;35;24;01
Unknown
And we quit having fun. Yeah, but what what are we here for? What is the purpose you can ride at? So you can try and solve cure cancer. But.

00;35;24;01 – 00;35;39;29
Unknown
that’s, Yeah, it just have fun, have fun. Make every, every moment count. You know, when you have when you have. That’s that’s kind of the take away that I’m getting is like when you have happiness in your heart, you’re you’re going to be the best person you can be, right?

00;35;40;02 – 00;35;42;08
Unknown
In whatever moment that you are in.

00;35;42;29 – 00;36;02;02
Unknown
My ex-wife’s, mother, used to say they’re pearls. She call them pearls. She said those pearls of wisdom that you’ll pick up throughout life. And she said, you never know when you’ll get those pearls, but, but when you do, put them in your pocket and hold on tight, because those pearls of wisdom will last you a lifetime, you know?

00;36;02;02 – 00;36;19;27
Unknown
And sometimes it’s, you know, come in the door at the end of a long day and and feeling exhausted, and the kids say, hey, dad, let’s go. Let’s go paddle around the lake on the in the paddle boat. And I’m like, oh, I really don’t feel like this. But then you get out there and you go, wow, I really needed this.

00;36;19;29 – 00;36;24;06
Unknown
And it’s you know, just don’t, don’t forget to go have fun.

00;36;27;05 – 00;36;32;21
Unknown
This conversation truly impacted both June and myself in such a beautiful and profound way,

00;36;32;27 – 00;36;36;15
Unknown
and we’re so thankful to Mark for being willing to be this open with us.

00;36;36;23 – 00;36;44;08
Unknown
Mark himself messaged us after to thank us for the opportunity to speak and how it had helped him feel very light and invigorated.

00;36;44;10 – 00;36;53;16
Unknown
He hopes his words resonate with at least a few people that so often in life, it feels as if we don’t have a voice, and that it was nice to have a platform to share his ramblings.

00;36;53;16 – 00;37;02;08
Unknown
As of the recording and release of this episode, Mark is still fighting the good fight and fulfilling his mantra of doing things in life that are fun and make him giggle.

00;37;02;08 – 00;37;21;25
Unknown
Thank you for listening to the entire episode. All the links and info you heard in this conversation will be featured in the show notes on our website. If you’d like to know more about anything we mentioned in this episode, make sure to check Villager Magazine Talks Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you’re listening from.

00;37;21;27 – 00;37;30;19
Unknown
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