Episode 152 Transcript
Heather Porter (00:01.645)
Well, hello, John. Welcome to the show. How are you going?
John Merkus (00:06.024)
I am excellent never been better. for asking Heather and absolute honor and privilege to be on the show. Thanks for having me.
Heather Porter (00:13.591)
It's great to have you here. You know, there's, some people in my network that say how you answer the question, how are you is everything. you know, whether it's, yeah, I'm doing all right, or I'm awesome. So you answered it well. Never been better. Yeah.
John Merkus (00:26.888)
I'm one of those awesome kind of guys. Yeah that not bad. I learned a long time ago that not bad. That's not really uplifting to you or others and words create your world. So there you go.
Heather Porter (00:40.633)
I'm a big believer and advocate in that as well. So I always like to start the show with some tangible tips and that's where we're going to start with you. And obviously we'll get into your journey and what you do and the amazing mark you're leaving on the world. But to start, what are a few tips that you personally use to grow your own business, your own movement with less of that hustle energy and more balance?
John Merkus (01:09.016)
Yeah, great question. And I love getting right into it as well, giving the audience value straight off the bat. I have a few things that I live by, my top tips that I also walk and embrace myself. So I'm not going to tell you anything that I don't do. first one is be kind to yourself.
You know, remember there's always more that you could do. There's always more to be done. You know, I heard it's an expression, you know, you're going to die with items in your inbox, you know, don't let that create negative self-talk when you do have things that you might not have done.
There's no need to beat yourself up. All you need to do is as much as you can every day, stay consistent, because growth doesn't happen overnight. It's with steady, focused effort that you make progress. So be kind to yourself is my first tip.
Heather Porter (01:48.31)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (02:05.207)
Nice.
John Merkus (02:07.5)
My second one is get a coach. I'm serious about this. I didn't have a coach for a while. In the last few years, I've had a coach and it's been invaluable for providing support and clarity. sec, I gotta take a breath. Get so excited, I forget to breathe. My coaches, puts it, when you're in the bottle, you can't see the label.
Heather Porter (02:11.128)
Yep.
John Merkus (02:36.576)
So a coach helps you see what you might miss and provides that perspective and guidance.
especially when you're in this entrepreneurial or you're in a bigger business, wherever you are, it can feel isolating at times. So having a coach, someone that knows you, that's on your side, cheering for you, you know, they're so important. It's made a massive difference in my life. Sometimes you think family and friends are going to take that position about being your biggest advocates, but that's not often the case. And when you have a coach, they're
trained, understand, they're cheering you on and your success is their success. So have a coach in your corner is another tip that I have.
Heather Porter (03:20.648)
Excellent. Do you have any more for us?
John Merkus (03:23.498)
Yeah, I've actually got two. Can I give you two more?
Heather Porter (03:25.57)
Please. Yeah, these are great. I love them so far. I'll have some questions for you about them in a second, but yeah, go on.
John Merkus (03:30.006)
Show show.
Stay true to your mission is the other one about. So if you're getting stressed out and you're hustling or you're feeling like things aren't working or whatever, always come back to what is your mission. Be clear on it, read it every day and align your actions with it. So if something comes up that doesn't contribute to your mission, don't do it. So this is what I've found about.
The more we take on, the more we can get a bit stressed and go, I can't do all of this, or this, this, and then if you pair it back and go, well, my mission, so my mission is to empower people and organizations to embrace change, build resilience and thrive. So if something comes in, let's say investing in real estate course comes up.
I'm going say no to that because it's not true to my mission. And as much as that interests me, think, that sounds great. It's not true to my mission and it might steer me off course to where I really want to go. I would definitely recommend people staying true to their mission, read it every day and align your actions to it.
Heather Porter (04:42.777)
That's brilliant. I'm going to actually say something on that as well because that's that whole shiny object syndrome. And right now I cannot tell you how many people, business owners I come across that are like, my gosh, I just bought this course on AI. And did you know there are these five AI tools? And I'm like, okay, are you wanting to become an AI expert or are you not? It's such an interesting perspective and such a solid point because you can work an entire year and feel like you've not done anything if you go down those wormholes, right?
John Merkus (04:45.912)
Sure.
John Merkus (05:11.756)
Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm all for investing in yourself, in your growth and learning. But as you're suggesting, does that align with your mission? And yet really, really important. And I love that example. Now, the last one I want to give, this is really my kind of jam, to speak, is mindset is everything. Absolutely everything. You you've got to enjoy every day.
Heather Porter (05:21.1)
Yeah, well said.
Heather Porter (05:26.104)
You
John Merkus (05:39.402)
And you know, it's a cliche, but enjoy the journey, right? Because the success or the feelings that you have when you actually achieve your goal, that's just a small sample of the time and the timeline that it took to getting there. So the real juice is actually in enjoying what you need to do in the time that you take and the actions that you take in achieving your goal.
Heather Porter (05:55.896)
Mmm.
John Merkus (06:08.37)
And if you are waiting to feel that joy and enjoying every day, I'll be fine when my bank accounts is, or I'll be fine when I've got a thousand clients, or I'll be this, I'll be that, you're ripping yourself off. It's said that it's not achieving the goal that defines the success, your success, it's the person you become along the way.
Heather Porter (06:23.202)
Yeah.
John Merkus (06:32.416)
So there are my top tips for growing your business with less hustle and more balance.
Heather Porter (06:32.492)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (06:39.372)
I love it. Thank you. I'm going to ask you a question about tip two around finding a coach because there are a lot of coaches out there. And what are your tips about finding the right coach for you?
John Merkus (06:44.322)
Yes.
John Merkus (06:52.428)
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks Heather. Great question. I realised there's probably more coaching courses out there than actual coaches, right? And maybe there might be more people that want to be coaches than there are clients that want to be coached. Now I'm a big advocate in having a coach and growing that cohort of people that do get coached because of the reasons we explained before.
Heather Porter (07:03.852)
Yes.
John Merkus (07:21.864)
I'm very fortunate in that I had a friend who I've known for 25 years. We did some personal development courses together when I was in Sydney. She was always, her name's Karina Murphy. She's been a guest on my show before and she's my coach again this year. And she was always giving great advice, always. It was just in her DNA to want to help people and give really sage advice.
Heather Porter (07:42.264)
Nice.
John Merkus (07:51.354)
And she was always and continues to always learn and grow herself. So you want to find a coach that's doing that themselves. It's not like I'm done now. Now I can let you know how it all is. They're continually growing, learning as well. And so when Karina decided to get a formal qualification in this area, she invested the time and money into herself to get that qualification, because anyone can call themself a coach, which I understand.
So I would recommend if you can get a third party referral, someone that has a qualification in being a coach and a lot of coaches will give you a bit of a free trial as well. So you want to get on well with them. And so that's what I would recommend in, in getting a coach and in Karina. I'm lucky that I Karina for, for so long and she was already kind of doing it. And then
turned that into a vocation and she's one of best in the business.
Heather Porter (08:53.579)
I love that you said the third party referral, the endorsement as well. That's not ever going anywhere. I mean, especially as we move ahead, think trusting in your networks and those around you. And one more thing, John, every single successful person that I know that is somewhat balanced as best as we can and living life fully, I'll have a coach. totally agree. Or they're in a mastermind group. I, Eben Flo, I'm in a mastermind group right now, a small group of people. And then I'll go to a coach and it's just, it's, it's
is life-changing like you said you know there's something about the label and like you can't read the label when you're in the bottle and look at all the athletes look at we have the Australian Open going on right now they all have a coach on the sidelines going no you move your body like that it's it's a necessity so thank you for having a little side conversation with me
John Merkus (09:41.548)
No problem, I'm a big advocate like you for our coach and people like us, we want to learn and grow. So if that's a recommendation and we can see high performance people and teams do that, well, why don't we do it? And the answer is we are.
Heather Porter (09:48.194)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (09:55.001)
Exactly. Success leaves clues. So I want to hear about you John. I want to know a little bit about your journey and I know we could probably talk for like three days about this so I'm gonna give you challenge to give me like the cliff note version. Where have you come from to get to where you are now and what are you up to?
John Merkus (10:14.03)
Sure, well, originally came from my mummy's I've known as a positive change guy, right? Cause I, I love.
Heather Porter (10:17.846)
There we go, we're going right back.
Heather Porter (10:27.308)
Yeah.
John Merkus (10:29.006)
personal and professional development and I talk about these principles all the time. So I got that from my dad who worked in the corporate arena and went to several seminars back in the day and he would share some of his insights with me as a kid. as a kid, I didn't get them as much as I do as an adult or I heard them, but they didn't really resonate with me. Like he told us that one of the best things you can do in the morning is look yourself in the eye in the mirror and say, I'm the greatest, I'm gonna have a great day.
eight, nine year old that didn't really resonate with me but it does today. That self-talk and looking at yourself in the eye and giving yourself a positive affirmation is the point there. But I went to a seminar
back in the 90s, called Metaphysical Mastery. And that was with Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and a few of the greats, James Redfield, author of Celestine Prophecy. And I was sitting in an arena of about 15,000 people.
Heather Porter (11:27.0)
Amazing.
John Merkus (11:32.264)
And Wayne Dyer at the time was talking. And all of a sudden it just felt like I was the only person in the arena and I got goosebumps. And it was really clear the message. What happened to me then was that's what I need to be doing. I need to be on stage keynote speaking, explaining these principles of personal and self development for people to be able to live their best lives.
So I had this epiphany way back then and I've been on this journey ever since. So when I hear something that makes a difference to me, my first thought is about applying it to myself. My second one is I want to share it and how come everyone doesn't know this? And a few examples are, know, every emotion is preceded by a thought.
That's just, that was mind blowing when I heard that. We talked about words creating your world. Thoughts are the energy behind the physical, right? So let's exclude nature. Everything, if you look around yourself, me, listeners, when you look around, everything you see was first someone else's thought.
Heather Porter (12:27.917)
Mm.
Heather Porter (12:31.458)
Amazing.
John Merkus (12:48.098)
So that means you can create something in the world with your mind and with your thoughts because that's how things start to be created. I didn't learn this at school, but when I found out these principles and how I can apply it, it just literally blew my mind. And the big one that I love to share with people is there's two aspects to being human. One is your circumstances.
and the other one is the conversation you are about your circumstances. But the quality of your life depends more on the conversations that you are about your circumstances than your actual circumstances. So I know we don't have time to unpack that probably today, but for the listeners, just have a think about that and see if that can resonate in some way.
Heather Porter (13:19.096)
oooo
Heather Porter (13:29.816)
Brilliant.
John Merkus (13:41.216)
for yourself and what are what conversation are you about your circumstances because the exact same thing can happen to two different people and one may look at as an opportunity and one may go down a rabbit hole of darkness about it and I'm not saying either either reaction is valid or sorry is invalid but if you want to be high performance and go where you want to go
there's the conversation you are about your circumstances, to be aware of that and then to choose and have the power of choice, that's empowering. And for me, that takes me where I want to go.
Heather Porter (14:21.14)
incredibly empowering, incredibly. I remember you just.
I'm flooded by memories right now of I used to work for Tony Robbins and I was in back in the day in my 20s in San Diego in the States and one of his seminar rooms, I think it was Unleash the Power with Ian, which is his weekend event. I was sitting in the room and he was like, you have the power to choose your life, to choose what you think. And he was similarly to what you're saying. And you're not taught this in school, as you said. And I had this epiphany moment. I was like, my God.
Really? I can choose? And it was this light bulb moment of the fact that we literally can choose the conversations we have and I love what you said. I've never heard it said in that way where based on our circumstances we can actually have different conversations around what's happened to us in the past and beautifully articulated. So thank you.
John Merkus (15:19.054)
Thank you, I love the simplicity of there's two aspects to being human. Your circumstances and the conversation you are about your circumstances. That's it.
Heather Porter (15:23.647)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (15:27.832)
Brilliant. Were you, so you, I know you're a keynote speaker and we'll get into more about how you specifically help people. Before you came across this path and being in the room with Wayne Dyer, what were you doing before that?
John Merkus (15:45.294)
I have, was, it's a great question. I'm just wondering how far to go back. Cause back then I was in my early twenties and I always had a interest in business. And so I straight after school, I worked in a bank cause I thought that was a great way to get a bit of business knowledge. And back then you could.
Heather Porter (15:57.442)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (16:02.381)
Yep.
John Merkus (16:13.89)
you could be a teller and all that kind of stuff. And so I did all that and was on the cash as they say. And from there, I moved to the Australian Stock Exchange and worked in their finance department, which was amazing, big eye opener. Not enough time for this story, but I'll tell you another time, the time where I had a $32 million and the bank teller said, who would you like that check made out to? I didn't say John Merkis, but for a split second, I thought, could I live in Brazil?
Heather Porter (16:18.281)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (16:26.486)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (16:41.304)
Yeah, right? Wow.
John Merkus (16:43.342)
Anyway, from there I got a flair for the computer systems and so I ended up getting a diploma in programming technology. So I was actually a developer and a programmer for a while and...
Heather Porter (16:55.583)
Interesting.
John Merkus (16:57.262)
People go, John, I can't believe that you're an IT geek. But I loved it. And so I ended up working for a software solutions company and becoming a director and a shareholder of that company. I guess they could see my enthusiasm, my drive and my spark. And I helped that become a Microsoft solution provider. I was...
Heather Porter (17:19.352)
Hey.
John Merkus (17:20.406)
I guess I was driven from a from a young age and had some opportunities, whether I put myself there or because of my attitude or whatnot, these things came, came towards me. So I was very, that's, was my start of my working career. Then I got into IT training and I started to look at the people side of IT. And then from there,
got a change management certification because I realized if I want to be in IT projects, the longevity of it is looking after the people side of change from the very beginning to the very end. So the training is just the middle part of that, right? So that's how I became a change manager in the corporate world. And that fits and I still do some work in that area today, as well as my speaking and et cetera and podcasts or whatever. But that's.
Heather Porter (18:00.63)
Yeah.
Okay.
John Merkus (18:12.576)
my kind of journey into the people side of things. So all that personal development and business development has all fed into how I am today. So I explained about the epiphany moment, but before that, that was my life. So I've had a very, very fortunate life and I feel very grateful.
Heather Porter (18:34.614)
Wow, I love evolution stories because, you know...
Every single person is so different with their past and the wisdom that you have gained along the way. And that's why I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into where you came from. And that's fascinating that your brain is initially was a programmer's brain and then what you're you're doing now. And wow, what a wealth of knowledge. So thank you for sharing your journey. And I want to go now to what you do. So you are a speaker. You said you're a keynote speaker around your speaking. What else do you do? Do you have programs? Do you work with business?
says what do do?
John Merkus (19:11.598)
Yeah, so I do consult to businesses about the people side of change and I'd love to be on stage, you know, five days a week, 300 days plus a year getting there, not quite there yet, but I do like the consulting side of my business as well. So I'm a change management consultant on the people side of change and I bring in
Heather Porter (19:14.68)
Okay, yeah.
John Merkus (19:35.968)
my personal development principles sometimes under the radar, but I always bring them in. Yeah, I always bring them in. Yeah, I'm not sitting in the corporate in boardrooms going, okay, everyone, let's tell me the two things you're grateful for today. Not initially anyway, I might have a time or in a one-on-one, but yeah, not in the boardroom to start with. And I have a mindset meditation app because...
Heather Porter (19:39.978)
Smart move, John.
Heather Porter (19:50.71)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (19:55.81)
Yep.
John Merkus (20:03.03)
People ask me, they say, John, you talk about mindset all the time. We get that we want to have a positive, optimistic mindset that works for high performance teams. But how do I cultivate and sustain one? So how to do that is by exposing yourself on a consistent daily basis with a
positive messages and upping your mindset game and to do that I've got several meditations in that app. Now they're reasonably short, it's all my voice, so if you like hearing my voice now you'll like the mindset meditation app. I'm growing it every month so there's 10 meditations on there at the moment and
Heather Porter (20:47.532)
Nice.
John Merkus (20:49.236)
It's been wonderful for me personally as well to create that and I listen, I listen back to them as well. So there's a sleep enhancement meditation. It's big. know a lot of people have challenges in that area. So I'll deeply relax the listener and I will use calming imagery and affirmations as well. So you kind of feel great as well. I've got a
stress anxiety relief meditation so if you're feeling a bit stressed even in the middle of the day you could put this on for 15 minutes and I guarantee you you'll be less stressed after listening to that. I've got a kindness and loving connection meditation so if you want to feel more connected to people you can put that one on.
One of the ones, and I think your listeners might like this one probably the best is the millionaire mindset meditation where I shift people's mindset to focus on financial abundance and prosperity through visualizations and affirmations. It is focused on financial abundance, but it also touches on abundance in all areas of your life.
Heather Porter (21:43.928)
There you go.
Heather Porter (21:53.132)
nice.
Heather Porter (22:00.568)
Mmm.
John Merkus (22:00.916)
And the last one I'll talk about is the optimism and magnetic leadership meditation. That's for leaders to cultivate optimistic inspiring leadership mindset to motivate teams and drive success for yourself and others. So I'm very excited about it. I've done a soft launch with it. So I haven't done the full big launch event and the big marketing campaign yet. That comes next quarter.
This quarter, Heather, I'm focusing on my one of my big, big goals, is to be Australia's representative in the Toastmasters International Speech Competition. So I've got.
Heather Porter (22:44.471)
Amazing.
John Merkus (22:47.054)
the area competition coming up next month. And I'm focusing on, I've written the speech now I'm focusing on delivering it and rehearsing it. And I'll rehearse it a hundred times minimum in the mirror before I deliver it. So there's a tip for people there that are concerned about public speaking. If you know your material and you've rehearsed it, you don't have nerves before you go and you have excitement, you can't wait to deliver it. So I'm digressing, I'm going everywhere there.
Heather Porter (22:49.761)
Yeah.
Heather Porter (23:13.718)
You too. No, I love it though. I know it's we're getting to know you and no thank you. Give me a case study. Talk to me about like what, however you want to take this. I want to know how somebody has come to you, what you've helped them with and sort of the before and a half after of working with you.
John Merkus (23:31.63)
You know, problem. One of the big things I'm about is, am I allowed to swear? Oh good. I like to have fun and get shit done. Right. And I say to myself that all the time, right. Cause as human beings, we can get significant about things or we can get wound up or caught up and we forget things. We forget, you know, all the...
Heather Porter (23:39.594)
Yes! Yeah, love it.
John Merkus (23:56.93)
great things that are either happening in our lives or the things that we've done in the past. We're really good at not celebrating our successes and just moving forward where it's really important to celebrate those successes along the way. I was engaged with Telstra, the massive communications corporation, to assist with changing their ways of working.
Heather Porter (24:21.58)
Wow, big feet.
John Merkus (24:23.594)
Yeah, because it's a large organization. Historically, it was a government organization and then it's moved on to private, but there's still various different sectors of how they work in that organization. And one of the things I realized that, and that came on as the people's side of change, as a change manager for that ways of working. So there were ways of working that were educated and that
wouldn't say prescribed, but there were six principles that they wanted people to adhere to. And I noticed there wasn't a whole lot of fun in that process. So I created the Lego challenge where I had five teams of six people each in each team, say 30 people, and they made a moon base out of Lego.
Heather Porter (25:05.048)
Wow.
John Merkus (25:20.468)
And they had to collaborate. They had to communicate. And I facilitated it. So they had fun while they were getting the job done and the lessons that they learned doing that hands on experience were invaluable. So as someone would have an insight and go, I didn't realize that my
Agenda and backlog is totally different to this other teams because each team was responsible for a different part of the moon base You might have transportation you might have health and well-being So they all had a brief of so they all had their mission and they had to somehow integrate that with everyone Else's team to be able to reach the common goal of building a moon base out of Lego We did that in two and a half hours
And these things were massive. People loved it because often adults haven't played with Lego for years. And so it was interesting. It was fun. People came into the room going, oh, well, it's all this Lego around. We actually had a lot of people taking the Lego home because we had a mini figures. They wanted to take the Lego because they loved it so much. And at the end of that.
Heather Porter (26:19.243)
No.
John Merkus (26:37.824)
A session like that, I would say to people, if we didn't break you in teams, prepare you rightly, show you how to work in a way of working, but then gave you a bit of autonomy as well as to now you know this, how do you think your team should work? Then went through those processes and talked about the mindsets along the way. If we hadn't done that, do you think you could have built this in two and a half hours?
And 100 % everyone said, there's no way. There's no way. Imagine if you've got 30 people in a room and said, here's your Lego, here's your brief. You got two and a half hours, go for it. So that was a way of where a case study where I've worked with a client where we had fun and got shit done.
Heather Porter (27:19.768)
It's huge.
Heather Porter (27:26.328)
in a short amount of time. yeah, I love the fun aspect. I'm glad you brought that up as well. People get so serious, you know, we, don't know, something happens like where you forget to have curiosity and playfulness as you get older. Yeah. So how fun. That's, that's a brilliant case study. I want to change gears a little bit and I want to talk about the future, the future of resilience, change.
Perhaps a fun, working with people. Your industry, what you do. What do you think the future holds?
John Merkus (28:01.358)
Well, I think the positive change in personal and professional development industry has never been more important than it is in 2025 and beyond. And I think this is going to be one of the best year for people and for people, especially that embrace change and want to learn and grow. So as human beings, are wired to be safe, right? Because when you boil it all down,
survival of the species is really important to us, it's in our DNA, whether we acknowledge that or realize that as we're going through life or not. So when we are safe we get this feeling of okay we're going to survive. Now the other part of being a human is more than just surviving
It's thriving and growing so we can evolve and what I call be your best self, right? So if you invest in yourself with time and often takes money, and I know sometimes it's hard for people to invest in themselves with money. It's okay to, you know, buy something for your kids or do whatever, or I look at those, you say the next shiny thing, but how about investing in yourself with time or money? It doesn't necessarily have to be a lot of money or a lot of time, but you need to invest in yourself.
reap the rewards and so I think pardon me so I think people that do that are going to have their best year yet and one of the challenges you mentioned it early on is people in business adapting to the technological change
Heather Porter (29:41.856)
Yeah.
John Merkus (29:42.094)
could be AI, could be something else, but I know AI is massive at the moment. So I think there's gonna be a greater emphasis on emotional intelligence, resilience and mindset because the leaders of tomorrow and today, they need to lead with empathy, focus on mental wellbeing and help their teams thrive. And that's why I think the industry that I'm in is...
going to have a bright future. because AI is tool. It's like a doctor has a scalpel. It can be useful or could not be useful depending on how you use it. But that doesn't negate the fact that we're human beings. We like and want that human connection. And I know sometimes technology takes us away from that, but...
If we use technology as a tool, and it can be a tool to enhance our lives, absolutely no drama about that. There's a myth about AI. I've gone down the AI path a little bit, only because it's massive and I knew that there'd be some clients that might ask me about, what's your take on AI and how you're using it and how can we, because I'm in the people side of change, a lot of organizations and people are trying to work out how do we...
Heather Porter (30:53.58)
Yeah, of course.
John Merkus (31:04.396)
change with this technology in a way that's empowering to our business and to our individuals. The myth about AI is that you're going to be able to sit up on your desk with your feet up and everything's just going to happen for you. It's like when personal computers first came in, right? I was a young boy at the time, but people thought, we're going to have all this free time and we're not going to need to do this and this. The fact is we do more. We absolutely do more.
Heather Porter (31:17.783)
Mm.
Heather Porter (31:31.874)
Me too.
John Merkus (31:34.388)
So this technology that's coming like a tsunami, it's already here in a lot of ways as we know, it will help you do more and it's a tool for you. It won't help you do less, but we still need that human connection. There's no way in the world myself and maybe others, and I'll speak for others, are going to watch a robot delivering standup comedy.
We want to see a human being with that human connection with their stories, with their ups and downs and making us laugh. That's one example of how it won't replace a lot of that human connection, that human resilience, that personal development side of things. That's why I think for my industry and embracing change and also personal and professional development, I think it's going to be an absolute marvelous year and I'm very optimistic about the future.
Heather Porter (32:32.097)
completely agree with you. I mean, we're in this era of anxiety and disconnect and loneliness and AI is just gonna bang come in and create in some ways even more of that. And I think you're right, people are starting to return to community and looking at how do I stay connected to others. And we're forgetting how that's what's strange. So I totally believe in
what you're saying now more than ever what you do is going to be what people need the most. So exciting for where you're headed for sure. John, as we start to wrap up, where do people find out more about you? You mentioned your meditation app. So what's that called? Let's start with that.
John Merkus (33:13.806)
Yeah, that's called the Fluid Reality Mindset Meditation app. So fluid reality because reality is fluid and also reminds me of water. Water always finds a way and is always moving forward. that's why it's called the Fluid Reality Mindset Meditation app. Now it's 50 % off at the moment. It's so...
Heather Porter (33:24.205)
Yeah.
John Merkus (33:34.126)
dirt cheap. It's like the price of a cup of coffee a month, right? So for those, for those meditations. So if you go to johnmercas.com, so my surname's M-E-R-K-U-S and it's John J-O-H-N. So johnmercas.com, it pops up straight away and you can get 50 % off that, which means that it's $4 a month. So you can have my voice with all those meditations. had two
Heather Porter (33:55.2)
Ridiculous.
John Merkus (34:00.286)
extra ones every month. in case you've heard the same one for a while and you want something different, that millionaire mindset one, that's the most popular one based on the stats.
I've just thrown one in there just the other day and it's a walking one. So you don't have to always be, know, with your eyes closed, doing a body relaxation first. This one is you're doing a walk, you pop in your headphones and I'll tell you how great you are for 15 minutes. So this is where, know, you can get those positive messages and affirmations coming to you from the outside. And I've found that to be very, very beneficial.
So there's what I'm getting at is there's varied ones. So there's something for everyone in there and it's 50 % off at the moment. And for $4 a month, if your listeners would like to go there, I'd love to have them on board in the Fluid Reality app.
Heather Porter (35:00.984)
Love it you guys and of course as always there's going to be links in our show notes as we start to wrap up and you're thinking about the future of where we're headed and the listeners who've tuned in and they're thinking I have so much on my plate I have so much to do there's so much change ahead. Do you have any last words of advice for them?
John Merkus (35:22.112)
I so do, have I?
Heather Porter (35:24.376)
I knew you would and I'm really waiting for this last one by the way too, so unleash.
John Merkus (35:30.648)
Well.
I, my, my last, let me get this right. My last piece of advice would be to embrace change as an opportunity for growth, not a challenge to overcome.
John Merkus (35:46.918)
Focus on building resilience. Stay optimistic and remember you have the tools inside you to thrive no matter what comes your way. So take action today and show up for yourself and try and be your best self. There's no imposter syndrome. If your best self is a person that
wakes up early, does exercise, does the right things, has a positive mindset and do that. That's your best self, right? And that's important to know. You don't, your best self is something that you want to strive for. You're not necessarily your best self every day, but if you're not being your best self, don't beat yourself up. Get back on the horse the next day. Look at how can I be my best self and take those actions all the time.
Sorry, every day those increments are so important. Don't forget the present moment as we talked about before. Some mantra I use sometimes, especially if I'm feeling a bit significant or I feel like I'm getting a bit stressed. You can feel that in your body, can't you? When you feel like you're getting a bit stressed and it's a bit of a red flag or a warning sign. I say to myself, present moment, beautiful moment. Just four words, gets me back and grounds me.
and a great expression I've heard, wherever your hands are, be there. And for God's sake, have some fun along the way. If you need some fun and you don't know how to generate it, instead of watching social media and seeing all the negative stuff, do a search for standup comedian, funny jokes today, whatever it is, give yourself a laugh because if you don't laugh every day, you're missing out.
Heather Porter (37:09.918)
It's cold.
Heather Porter (37:32.328)
I love it. knew you were somehow going to weave fun into this last device. thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for sharing really great little tangible takeaways. Guys, you want to check out that app? Yeah, you have a great voice. And I was going to say that at the start. So no surprise you have meditations. Thanks, John. I really appreciate it.
John Merkus (37:53.354)
Absolute pleasure Heather and you keep staying awesome.
