Turning the Tables on Burnout - Marco Benitez

Marco, a transformational burnout coach who has dedicated his life to helping healthcare professionals find balance and fulfillment in their lives and careers, whether they're currently experiencing burnout or are nearing it. Having walked the path of burnout as a Physician Assistant, Marco deeply understand the unique pressures you face in your role. His mission is to empower people to embrace their true self, unlocking their unique talents and harness their innate passions and strengths to create a life and career that brings joy, fulfillment, and that inspires others.​

https://www.coachmarcob.com/

Summary:
When the relentless grind of the medical profession began to dim Marco Benitez's once-bright passion for healing, he knew it was time for a radical change. Join us as we sit down with this former physician assistant, now a burnout and authenticity coach, and unravel the tale of a man who bravely stepped away from a prestigious career to help others find their true path.

Marco's story takes us from the vibrant streets of 90s Queens to the high stakes of emergency medical response, diving into the heart of what it means to connect with patients beyond their symptoms. But beneath the surface of this fulfilling journey, we uncover the darker side of medical burnout—a malaise that afflicts many healthcare professionals. Marco's candid recounting of his own struggle with exhaustion and detachment from work offers sobering insights into the need for balance and authenticity in our professional lives.

As a beacon of hope and resilience, Marco's pivot to coaching unveils the power of authenticity in transforming not just our careers, but our lives. He shares how embracing our individuality can combat the gremlins of self-doubt, and foster not only personal satisfaction but also a deeper sense of community. Whether it's navigating the complexities of bilingual parenthood or redefining success, Marco's journey is a testament to the courage required to follow one's calling and emerge as a guiding light for others. Tune in for an episode that promises to shift your perspective on fulfillment and the true meaning of success.

Transcript

Raul Lopez: 0:04

This is Raul Lopez and you're listening to how Do you Save Success in Spanglish. The path to success isn't easy For minorities and people of color. Many attempt this journey with little to no guidance. Join me as I sit down with individuals who share their stories of perseverance so that together, we can learn how to say success in Spanglish what's good, mi gente, it's your boy, raul. Welcome back. Thanks for joining me here on how Do you Say Success in Spanglish. Today on the show I have a very special guest, marco Benitez, burnout and authenticity coach. How's it going, marco? Very good man. Thank you, Glad to be here.

Raul Lopez: 0:49

Yeah, same thing. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show Just to kind of give a little intro on Marco. Marco is a transformational burnout coach who has dedicated his life to helping healthcare professionals find balance and fulfillment in their lives and careers, whether they're currently experiencing burnout or are nearing it. Having walked the path of burnout as a physician assistant, marco deeply understands the unique pressures you face in your role. His mission is to empower people to embrace their true selves, unlocking their unique talents and harness their innate passions and strengths to create a life and career that brings joy, fulfillment and that inspires others. Marco, welcome to the show.

Marco Benitez: 1:26

Thank you Glad to be here.

Raul Lopez: 1:28

Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that you took the time out today to get on here and so I guess, to kind of start off. You know, tell me a little bit about yourself. Who is Marco Benitez?

Marco Benitez: 1:37

Oh, you covered so much of it in the intro.

Raul Lopez: 1:40

Oh, there we go, it's over. Thank you for coming on.

Marco Benitez: 1:44

Don't forget, tip your waitress. Yeah, there we go. You know I'm born and raised in New York. I consider myself a native New Yorker, just the guy trying to figure it out as he goes along. My passion has always been in medicine and somewhere along the beginnings of my path in medicine I felt a deeper calling and that transitioned me little by little into coaching.

Raul Lopez: 2:06

Nice, nice. And so, yeah, I mean so obviously you do a lot of stuff with coaching now and you did physician assistant. It's a long journey from where you you've came and to getting to becoming a physician assistant and I want to make sure I don't say physicians, assistants, nobody gets mad at me physician assistant and then ultimately into coaches. So tell me, you know you come from New York. What was it like growing up in New York for you?

Marco Benitez: 2:31

It was good. You know I consider myself a child of the 90s. I was born in the late 70s my time when I was in my teens. You know my teen years was in the 90s. So depending on who you talk to, they'll tell you that music peaked in the 90s. I'm one of those people that believes that.

Raul Lopez: 2:45

Yeah, no, I agree too.

Marco Benitez: 2:47

So yeah, 90s hip hop, 90s R&B it's unlike anything you know, and so that defined a lot of my growing up. You know, we got out there, me and the fellows from the block, and we just explored all parts of New York, mostly Queens, because that's where I was born and raised.

Raul Lopez: 3:02

Okay, nice, nice, and so ultimately, you decided to become a physician assistant. Is that something you always wanted to be? Did you always know medicine was something you were interested in early on, or did that something that come in later on?

Marco Benitez: 3:15

I always like facts, science, things like that. I remember in grade school my classmates were taking out books like Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys and I was taking out books on volcanoes and dinosaurs and space, so I always knew that science was something that really resonated with me. Medicine didn't come up until much later. After high school, I decided to explore the career in pre-hospital care, emergency medicine, as an EMT. So I got certified as an EMT. I actually worked for the FDNY, so I was responding to 911 calls in New York city. I was yeah, I was pulling out people from car wrecks and all the bad stuff you would imagine people are calling for. I worked in the South Bronx. I worked in Brooklyn North, which is areas like Williamsburg, greenpoint and Bed-Stuy, which is areas like Williamsburg, greenpoint and Bed-Stuy, which is nothing like it is today. Today you can go for a stroll at any time in those areas.

Raul Lopez: 4:13

My wife's from Williamsburg too, so she tells me how different it was from back in the day.

Marco Benitez: 4:18

Oh yeah, no, I had butcher knives pulled out on me there were people chasing after us with clubs, bats, whatever it was it was, and that's that. We were in full uniform. They didn't care, um, but it was a lot different. So that was my first step in in into the medical field, and I remember the first day at my Brooklyn facility that I was assigned to, I was working with this really nice guy I can't remember his name and we were just chatting it up. I was young. I started when I was 19 years, actually 20. I had just turned 20.

Marco Benitez: 4:51

And we were talking in the ambulance, just waiting for our next job, and he says you know what? You remind me a lot of myself. He says I'm going to give you a very good piece of advice. He says quit this job as fast as you can. I said what he's like quit. He's like get out, get out of this job, he said, because I was the same person sitting right there where you are saying exactly what you were saying. He says and now, 10 years later, I have a mortgage, I have a wife, I have a beautiful daughter, he's like and I can't go anywhere. So he says right now, you don't have any of that. He's like and I can't go anywhere. So he says right now you don't have any of that. He's like get out of here as fast as you can and pursue that career in medicine that you want to pursue.

Raul Lopez: 5:30

And how did that make you feel?

Marco Benitez: 5:57

Well when he said get out, I was like dang, I thought he was trying to kick me out the ambulance, you know, in that moment. So that was my first reaction. Again, I was kind of naive. It was my first real job, my only job I had before that was a cashier at QFood up until that point. So you know, I felt a little out of my place there, you know. I'm sure, school part time, pretty much. Maybe a couple of months after he said that Started doing school part time, college part time, and I just knew that I was not moving at a pace that I would want to achieve the goals that I had. So I wound up taking a leave of absence and then eventually just did college full time.

Raul Lopez: 6:26

Okay, and is that when you started doing the physician assistant aspect of things?

Marco Benitez: 6:31

No, no, no. So when I started college I started a little bit later. I didn't start college until I was 23. So I had done a couple of years on the ambulance. So I started college around 23 and my major was in laboratory science. So eventually I earned a bachelor of science and it's a long drawn out name, but it's medical biology with a specialization in biomedical technology. I minored in pre-med and I wound up working for the university as an EMT as well in the ambulance, and so that got me some perks as being an employee for the university. So I stayed also for the master's and did a master's essentially in the same thing, just with a concentration in medical chemistry and a minor in hematology.

Marco Benitez: 7:23

So you know boring nerd stuff. It was fascinating to me and it was in that transition from bachelor's to master's that I realized, okay, bachelor's degree, I don't want to do laboratory medicine. So I was going to get into a program that's highly specialized. There's like a hundred applicants, they accept seven and somehow I got in. So I got accepted to the program. And then I withdrew from the program like four days before it started, cause there was something inside of me that said that's not the path for you. That's not the path for you and I lost some money on the deposit and the director of the program you know was pretty much yelling at me for 45 minutes on the phone trying to convince to come back to the program it started off with is something wrong. Then it started trying to convince me and then it finished up with. You know you stole somebody's spot and somebody couldn't take it yeah, so I felt horrible.

Marco Benitez: 8:15

I felt horrible, you know so, but I just something in me, when I, even though I was moving forward with it, something in me was like that's not the path for you, not the path for you, so I walked away.

Raul Lopez: 8:28

It's a hard thing, probably especially at that point in your life, for a lot of us to listen to our instincts. What was that buildup for you to realize and say, okay, I got to get off, get off. You know, it's just a pisser, get off the pot, Like no, I gotta, I gotta make this move.

Marco Benitez: 8:48

Yeah, the timeline was moving very quickly. The timeline moved very quickly. The program was introduced to me by one of my professors and the program was called cardiovascular perfusion technologists. So essentially these are the technicians that work the heart lung machine. So when you're doing bypass surgeries, when you're doing an open heart surgery, you have to disconnect the blood flow from the heart because they're working on the heart and it has to go into the bypass machine. So that program was to train you how to work that machine. It was like it's a whole degree just to run that machine.

Marco Benitez: 9:25

The money was good, but when I observed one day I realized the lifestyle, just the way the job was, what the job entailed, and it wasn't so much the complexities of the job because, like I took all these nerd classes, I was just going to continue.

Marco Benitez: 9:42

Why stop now? But what really lacked for me was this lack of human connection. Outside of talking with your coworkers and having the surgeon yell out orders to you in order to restart the flow and so on and so forth, there was no real human element where I can make a human connection. And it's funny because I never thought of it, about it until now that I'm telling you. But that's something that really came up again in my transition from being a PA and into going and choosing to go into coaching. So I guess we'll get into that in a little bit, but that was the deciding factor. I realized that I was just going to be engaging with my colleagues, but I was not going to be engaging with patients, and that was something that was important to me, just making a real human connection with someone. And then the timeline was moving so quick that I just had to jump on and say I got to make this hard decision.

Raul Lopez: 10:40

I got you.

Marco Benitez: 10:41

I got you.

Raul Lopez: 10:42

So what did you do next after that?

Marco Benitez: 10:46

So I switched the major into the other masters, which was in the laboratory science Um.

Marco Benitez: 10:58

I just did my best effort there, but at that point I was already looking into going into PA school. So I was looking at the different physician assistant programs. Um, I applied to like two or three but I missed like one deadline. And so there was like one school left that I had not heard back from, which was St John's University. And then I actually wasn't St John's at the time. I'm probably dating myself at this point. There were Catholic medical centers, catholic medical centers which was in conjunction with St John's University, and I got into that program, and halfway through my program Catholic medical centers sold the program to St John's University officially and so, lucky for me, then I get a certificate from St John's University, so looks better on a resume.

Raul Lopez: 11:44

Yeah, I'm sure Nice. And so during this time where you're doing all this things in college and getting your master's, is this kind of where you started dealing with some of the major aspects of burnout, especially in the medical field, that it's so prevalent?

Marco Benitez: 12:10

it. No, no, and and it's because I was not aware and exposed to that that I probably moved forward so eagerly, like you know, all clicking my heels, like I found my field. I found my field because I think that if I would have seen that, I probably would have pulled back and thought twice about going into medicine as a provider. So that's the interesting part. I didn't see it. I didn't see it when I applied to the program. I didn't see it all throughout the entire program. I didn't see it when I graduated until about four or five years after I was working in the profession. And it's worse that it happened then. It's worse that it happened then Because at that point I'm getting five years of paychecks. At that point I'm getting five years of status, patients looking up to me. Thank you for your help.

Marco Benitez: 13:00

I was working in a private practice. I'm going out to all these pharmaceutical dinners. I'm eating at five-star restaurants for free because the pharmaceutical reps would take us out. I'm having all these experiences and it was then that I started to realize something does not feel right on many levels for me, for me, for me. I will never speak bad about the profession. It's a fantastic profession, not just for those in it, but for the care, the patient care and the service they provide to people in need. So never speak bad about the profession.

Marco Benitez: 13:32

Something just did not sit right with me around that time, and it was around that five year mark that I started to feel like man. Why am I tired all the time? Why am I so not motivated? Why am I eating all this crappy food all the time? Why am I having wine so often to relax and unwind? Why is Sunday so irritating and bothersome and frustrating to me? Sunday nights, the Sunday, the sun goes down and the stress starts to go up. Why is it that I go on vacation? One week vacation, I can't relax into the vacation until the third day, and by the fourth and fifth day I'm already anticipating the stress that I'm going to come back to. So I couldn't walk away from the job. So it was worse that it happened then. But it's a good question. Did I see the burnout in the beginning? And that's what got me interested? No, because I would not have been interested. I would have been scared away.

Raul Lopez: 14:35

It's like one of those when you go for a job interview and everybody's like, oh, this company's great and everything's amazing and everybody's awesome, and then you go there for the first day we're actually working like, dude, get out, now it's, you're the guy yes, that guy in your ambulance telling you to leave.

Marco Benitez: 14:50

You know like it's like yeah, yeah yeah, and it's funny you mentioned that, because I used to do uh, keep it vague because I don't want to point fingers at any place in particular.

Marco Benitez: 14:59

But, um, I used to do interviews for medical providers for a company and I was selling it to them. But there was a lot of the same complaints coming back from people and I started to sweat like, oh my gosh, I'm interviewing people and telling them all the great things about the company because that's what I have to do, but I know that there's a lot more behind the scenes.

Raul Lopez: 15:24

And I know in medicine, in any type of health aspect, it's a lot of hours, it's a lot of you know long shifts repetitively throughout the week where you're nonstop and then you go home and sleep for a day and you come back for another, you know two days on, some things like that. And so you know I can't imagine the type of stress that you deal with and especially and so they're not showing it to you early on and you're going in there and you have to deal with that stress, like I mean I don't know if I'd be able to handle it or whatever. So I'm glad that you know you would take from that and kind of move on for it and do that. But you know. So you started working initially as a PA and you know what was that like initially when you first started.

Marco Benitez: 16:11

Yeah, it was great. It was great. You know that whole scenario of the long hours and lack of sleep and waking up. You're describing my clinical year when I was finishing up school. You have that one year of internship program year when I was finishing up school. You have that one year of internship program.

Marco Benitez: 16:27

So you described my OBGYN rotation where I had a what they call call and take calls. So call is not that you're on call and you got to come in and call is that you got to stay there. So imagine we went into work today at five in the morning and I didn't leave tomorrow until 10 AM, 10, 30 in the morning, like that was shift. And in obgyn um, there you were really on edge. There's a room you can go to to rest but you know they, they, they use pagers in the hospital so they would page you. And then you got to deliver a baby in the middle of the night. You know. So like push, push, you know, and you're trying to be all you know in it, but you know you're like running on 44 minutes of sleep.

Marco Benitez: 17:03

You know for the whole night and you know in it, but you know you're like running on 44 minutes of sleep you know, for the whole night and you know, congratulations, it's a girl, unless if I cut off the wrong cord you know, it's not like one of those situations, but starting the work in after I finished was really great.

Marco Benitez: 17:19

I worked in private practice. I didn't think I was going to like that setting as much, so I worked in primary care, internal medicine. I was doing primary care for quite some time and it was good because I had worked in a uniform for most of my EMT career, you know. And then I was in you know scrubs in the hospitals and it was nice to finally have wear some dress clothes and put on a white coat and I had business cards and I had a desk and you know I thought I was like a mojente grande you know my life, you know I was like wow, you know, and and and.

Marco Benitez: 17:52

In that setting, because you can follow up with people, I had that opportunity to engage and to follow through their progress. You know, through the ups and downs that they were going through. And you know you have those proverbial moments of thank you for helping me if it wasn't for you, kind of moments, and we don't see it that way, that's just our job. People are grateful, but sometimes they bring you fruit baskets or a bottle of wine during the holidays and I had a patient who was a butcher. I had a patient who was a butcher. He's like come to my butcher shop. So I showed up there and the guy gave me like this ridiculous deal. I remember it was like grilling for for like 4th of July. I'm like hey, how you doing? Like I saw him. It's like hey, doc, how are you? They called us doc. He was over PA. He called us doc. Hey doc, hey doc, how are you?

Marco Benitez: 18:44

He stopped what he's doing. He's like tell me what you want. I'm like look, I got x amount of people. I need a nice mix of stuff. He's like don't worry, dude, filled up shopping bags. I think it had to be. Maybe it felt like weights. They felt like weights. It was like no lie, there was probably at least 30 to 40 pounds of meat between those two bags ribs and steaks and like, wow, I love my life, you know, and I got into my my first nice car because I had only had beat up used cars up until then. Um, so it was, it was good. It was good until it wasn't.

Raul Lopez: 19:21

Yeah, and I was gonna ask you too one of the things you mentioned earlier was that you didn't have the human interaction in that first set when you were studying um whatever the blood thingy. Uh, the blood thing yeah that blood, you know the blood stuff, um, and so did, did. Were you getting that level, that, that aspect of satisfaction from the as a PA?

Marco Benitez: 19:42

Yes, yes, but it's funny because that.

Marco Benitez: 19:50

I don't know if I don't know if need is the right word, but that that affinity for a deep human connection started to evolve a lot more. So I was getting that in the beginning because it was so much different from the ambulance and the ambulance I'm with the person 20, 30 minutes, maybe an hour on a long job. You know, you talk with them. You never see them again, never see them again In in the school program. It was a little bit different because again get a little more time with them because you're at a place at a clinic or at a hospital, but again you're only there for a short period of time. Training In the office. It was also the same thing Now I had a longer period of time.

Marco Benitez: 20:37

But now the way I was connecting changed because there was a point and I want to choose my words carefully because I don't want to sound as though I'm speaking out against the medical profession or the way medicine is practiced but for myself I found that I felt a deeper connection and my patients were more receptive and voiced more positive feedback when I stopped jotting the notes and was not so interested in writing the prescriptions, but rather when I put down the pen and I engaged in active listening and in uncovering where is this all coming from, because it was there for the first time that I started to realize that many people tend to manifest physical symptoms for reasons that are not explained by physical causality, if that makes any sense.

Marco Benitez: 21:39

And again, this is not a blanket statement saying that everything is psychogenic in nature. But I did find certain patterns and I became very astute at identifying them and asking the right questions to the right people at the right time, and it would help me uncover more. So the depth and the profundity of that human connection evolved, and when it got to that point it really started to make my practice of medicine less fulfilling, because it seemed a little bit more business-like and a little bit more routine and robotic, so to speak, and for me that just wasn't something that ignited me like it used to.

Raul Lopez: 22:28

And what ultimately triggered that transition, for you to start wanting to leave being a PA and start becoming ultimately what you become a coach.

Marco Benitez: 22:41

Yeah, so the transition is still ongoing, believe it or not, because it's not that I have. It's not that I have a disdain or dislike for the medical profession. It's just not something I want to depend on to provide for the rest of my life. There's a lot of limitations within my personal profession. There are certain economic ceilings, there are certain practice barriers that I have, so I don't have the 100% autonomy and freedom that we'll say a physician, an MD or a DO has, or even, at least in New York, nurse practitioners have. The legislation's a little bit different. So there's more restrictions for me within my professional title. But I love practicing medicine. It provides me what I call the mental calisthenics. I'm able to problem solve, piece things together, provide solutions. So I still like that. So the transition is still ongoing. But the transition began.

Marco Benitez: 23:49

The bug, as I'll call it, started kind of nudging. That bug started around like that fifth year. The transition out of it. The very, very beginnings probably happened about maybe three to four years after that, Maybe about three years after that, maybe about three years after that. The beginnings of it, because it didn't start with I want to be a coach. No, it started with this really deep desire for personal development, deepening my spirituality, understanding life purpose, understanding what are my abilities, my gifts, my talents, things that come natural to me, what are the most common things that people are always telling me that I do well, that attract them to me as a provider. So it was a few years of really soul searching, so to speak, and that personal development, a lot of reading, a lot of thinking, beginning to meditate, things like that.

Raul Lopez: 25:01

It's a funny way that you put it where you. One of the things you just mentioned was that you know, finally, starting to listen to people, what they were telling me I'm good at or my strengths are, and it's something I think a lot of us never do for a long time. We just keep our head down and keep working, and so you know, that kind of resonated with me a lot in my life because it's you know the same thing.

Raul Lopez: 25:24

You start doing stuff now and you're like you know you should have been doing this for years. It's something you're good at and something I've told you for a while, but one of the things I did read that was in your bio is that you mentioned you had a conversation with your parents that helped you discover your true calling. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Marco Benitez: 25:42

I don't think I had a conversation with my parents per se. I didn't have a conversation with them really.

Raul Lopez: 25:55

I don't think I We'll move on. I don't think I.

Raul Lopez: 25:59

It was something I read on your website, so I'm not going to.

Marco Benitez: 26:01

Really. I got to check my website then, jesus.

Raul Lopez: 26:04

If that's there, I got to update it. Let's move on. I'll pull all politically on it, okay, but okay so so once, once you've officially put your foot in the water and you start deciding I'm going this route, what were some of the things you had to do to start getting into becoming a coach?

Marco Benitez: 26:21

Yeah, the first things I had to do was wrestle with internal barriers. That was the first thing, because there's a whole bunch of questions that come into play when you make the decision to walk away from a profession that you just spent eight years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition dollars to get into and say, yeah, I don't like it, I want to do something else. And.

Marco Benitez: 26:42

I was married at the time, so I had to think about the familial repercussions. I had my son, who was just a couple of years old at that time, so I had to think about the familial repercussions. I had my son, who was just a couple of years old at that time, so I had to think about the parental implications of that. The provider stuff the provider stuff I had to think of. You know, it wasn't the kind of thing where, yeah, I'm just going to do this. You know, had I been single, I probably would have just been a little bit more abrupt about the transition. But that was the first thing. Number one was that. The second was my own feelings on public perception. What are people going to say when I tell them I'm a coach? And they don't even know what that is and they're going to think that, you know, I'm aloof and are you crazy? You went all this time in school and you want to do coaching. You want to be a life coach, you know. So that was the first part. That was the first.

Marco Benitez: 27:31

Obstacle was battling all this internal stuff, and the one conversation I did have was with my wife at the time and asking her, and I kind of just laid it out to her. I said look, here's where I feel like I could apply all of it, you know, and I played around with a bunch of stuff. I'm like maybe I should go to medical school and now get my MD license, and maybe I should go into psychology and become a psychologist and all this stuff. And then eventually I landed into the coaching and I remember I had told my wife at the time I said look, here's where I feel I could use everything that I've been born with and everything that I've learned and the ways that I feel I could connect with people and everything that I've learned and the ways that I feel I can connect with people. Here's the financial investment it's going to take for me to attend this program, which is like the number one program in the world. I wanted to go to the best.

Marco Benitez: 28:16

So I wanted to go to that program. Here's the financial investment.

Marco Benitez: 28:21

I said if you feel it's okay for me to do this and the financial investment, here's how I would finance it. If you're okay with it, let me know and I'll move forward. But if you're not okay with it, I completely understand and I'll let it go. And she supported me and she said, yeah, you know, move forward with it. And so I did, and so I did. So I applied to the program. I got in. It was called the Institute of Professional Excellence in Coaching. It's IPEC for short. It's considered, at least at the time, the number one coaching program in the world. It was a long program. I forgot how many hours it was, but it was a lot of hours and it was broken up over several months. They had modules and you did coaching in between. It was very hands-on and intensive and, um, yeah, so I I did the training. That was in 2016.

Raul Lopez: 29:19

That was in 2016 were you still working as a pa while you were doing that, or was that just kind of? Yeah, so you're doing both, juggling both yeah, I was working as a pa.

Marco Benitez: 29:28

I didn't mention that I started a recruiting company when I finished school and I was still trying to recruit. So I was working as a pa. I didn't mention that I started a recruiting company when I finished school and I was still trying to recruit. So I was trying to handle that and I was trying to be, you know, a present husband. I was trying to be a present father. Um, by 2016, I had already had my daughter, so now we had the both kids at the time, um, so, so there was a lot to juggle.

Raul Lopez: 29:50

There was a lot to juggle, speaking about burnout. Right, it's a lot. It's a lot, exactly, exactly. And when you were doing this, did you know burnout on authenticity was what you wanted to focus on, or were you kind of still trying to figure that out?

Marco Benitez: 30:14

out. So no, I didn't know that I wanted to focus on both. My message of the, the message of authenticity, has always been there from the beginning, but I never realized it until maybe a year and a half ago. I had always talked about it but I never put it under that one word authenticity. I created other words around it, I would do descriptors, but I never consolidated into that one word Burnout. I knew because at that point I had already experienced burnout Big time, big time. That was the biggest big time and I left the job before I went into the coaching. So I knew that, but I didn't focus in on that just yet.

Marco Benitez: 30:50

When I eventually started doing the coaching again, I tried different monikers. I started with I want to. I'm a peak performance coach. I'm a. What did I say? I'm a, I'm a, I'm a life coach for professionals who want to be present for their families. Like I came up with a whole bunch of different things and it wasn't until about maybe two years ago, year and a half, two years ago, that I really started to just narrow it down, to just really become accepting of the two things, mostly authenticity. And then there's burnout.

Marco Benitez: 31:24

At my core, even within burnout coach is authenticity coaching. I could explain that to you, I guess, in a little bit when we get to that, so I don't jump around too much. But that's where it that's where they came together In my mind. It was definitely authenticity is the core message. But how do I market a term which by definition means it is different for every person?

Marco Benitez: 31:51

And when you do marketing 101, you have to find that one message, the core message and the thing that applies who's your ideal customer avatar? Where do they shop? What do they buy? What car do they drive? Where do they hang out? But by authenticity I can't do that. I never figured out how to do that, because if being an executive is authentic to you, being a simple person who doesn't have a high-profile job like that might not be authentic to them. They just want to have a peaceful job that they're happy with and make enough to pay the bills. And then you have someone where authenticity is hey, I want to be present for my family, but I also want to have a hobby that means something to me. So burnout eventually became that case, that shell that encompassed everything that I could market into one solid stream. So it's burnout coaching for healthcare care professionals right now.

Raul Lopez: 32:52

But at the core of it, it's all authenticity yeah, and so let's let's move right into it, man, and let's talk about burnout and authenticity. You know, like, you know um, you know how are they, how are they related and how, how did that come together?

Marco Benitez: 33:07

so the first thing to understand is that stress and burnout are not the same thing. It's a very important distinction to make People say at work, oh, I'm burnt out. They may or may they may be burnt out, but they also may not be burnt out, just like when we say, oh I'm starving. You're not starving, you just you know you just can't get to Chipotle fast enough. You know like you're not starving. You know there are people that are starving. You just, you know you just can't get to Chipotle fast enough. You know like you're not starving. You know there are people that are starving. There are people that are burnt out.

Marco Benitez: 33:37

Burnout is now considered to be a medical diagnosis. Burnout has several criteria. They call it three dimensions. So the first is um exhaustion, the second one is disinterest and the third one is detachment from engagement at work. Essentially, the reason why you went into that job in the first place is lost to you. So there's three dimensions to burnout.

Marco Benitez: 34:08

Burnout is what happens when stress is left unchecked for a prolonged period of time. That period of time is not uniform, it's not universal. It's different for each person. It depends what has stressed you out, what that stressor means to you and how present. That stress has been throughout your experience. In the beginnings of when burnout was coined, which is back in the 70s, this guy named Herbert Frudenberger. He wrote this paper called the High Cost of High Achieving, where he coined the term burnout for the first time it was described, and even up until recently it's described as a workplace phenomenon. We know now that burnout is not isolated to the workplace. It is something that has its place in not just work.

Marco Benitez: 35:01

But there's also people that have burnout in their personal lives. There's caregiver burnout. Caregiver burnout's a huge thing. So people that have elderly parents, that have medical issues or they have children with special needs, they have a burnout, probably even more intense than people at work. Because, whether as much as a person feels that they can't quit their job or not, you can quit a job. As much as oh, I can't. You can literally just go in there and say I quit, that's it. I'm not saying it's not going to be due to precautions and your life's not going to fall apart and you can't pay your bills, but you can absolutely go into a job and say I quit, that's it. For people that have parents with medical conditions, children with special needs, they cannot quit. They can't quit.

Marco Benitez: 35:46

So how does this all tie into authenticity? It's my belief that every single person who suffers from burnout has at least one moment where they start to question is this really what I should be doing with my life? Is this really the best use of my talents, my skills, my ability? Was there a path that I felt deep within me that I wanted to walk down, and I chose a different one. And here I am. So these existential questions are really rooted in authenticity, because if it was just a matter of talking to the boss and oh, could you delegate some responsibilities to someone else and maybe I need a couple of days off, then it would be a lot easier to manage. But burnout and this is something that's going to blow your mind Burnout is actually shown to change the structures of your brain. Mris that were done on people with burnout shows that there are structures of the brain that shrink within the brain in people with burnout.

Raul Lopez: 37:00

That's crazy.

Marco Benitez: 37:02

Yeah, not stress. Yeah, burnout, yeah. And and when you have something in Spanish, well, we're talking Spanglish here, so that's cool. There's a saying in Spanish that says my mom, says that all the time. Yes.

Marco Benitez: 37:23

And then you get some weird patients like mine. They say, hey, I don't know about that. I've heard that quite a few times. I don't know if you have diabetes emocional, that's not a real thing. But burnout actually is enfermándose de los nervios, you really are, because it not only changes the structure of your brain, it changes your sleep pattern, it changes your behavior. It can alter your brain, it changes your sleep pattern, it changes your behavior, it can alter your personality, it can cause hormonal fluctuations. So it's really, really, really something that I mean. I hesitate to call it a killer, but in some cultures they actually have a word for it death by overwork. In Japan they call it a garrosy, if I'm not mistaken. In china it's guarosa, and then in korean I forget the word, but it's some variants of that but they have a word for them death by overwork.

Marco Benitez: 38:23

So at the core of burnout is something deeper within oneself to be authentic, to do something that really resonates with their authentic self. And that's how I find the correlation between the two. So when I find someone that's burnt out, I can find someone that needs coaching around their authenticity. That's how I solve the problem of marketing authenticity.

Raul Lopez: 38:47

Yeah, for Latinos, I think, for me, and Latino especially, an immigrant as well. You know the the idea of you work. You work regardless of whether you like it or not. You work, whether it's it's fulfilling, whether or not it's giving you what you want. You just work. You need to put food on the table and that's what's important for you, and then everything else is supplemental and can fall by the wayside. And you know, do you tend to find that sour mentality kind of helps drive eventually people into burnout.

Marco Benitez: 39:20

I would say it's. It can be a contributing factor, and it's interesting you mentioned that because I never realized that until I started working as a PA and my jobs up until maybe 12 years into it all my jobs up until then were all in Spanish speaking communities because I spoke Spanish. So that's what got me in and what I came to realize is that the life of a Latino in the United States is a life of work and it's a life of struggle for those that immigrate here and again. I want to tread lightly around this topic because currently there's this whole thing going on with the migrants and I know there's a lot of strong opinions there, but what I will just highlight is just a couple of the patterns that I had seen is that you have some, you have a person that comes in seeking a better life because they were told by someone it's a better life, which in many respects probably is, but an underestimation of the amount of work that it takes to make ends meet, at least in New York. I can only comment about New York and New York is freaking expensive fact. I just saw an article yesterday that says that the cost of living required for a family of four to live comfortably in New York is about 319,000 a year, yeah, and for a single person I think it's like 217, 217,000.

Marco Benitez: 40:44

So you have someone that comes in not speaking the language, someone that wants to work, but the amount of work that they do does not yield enough income to provide a comfortable life, and so many times they have to take on two jobs, and so they have kids at home, so they put them in the schools, but because they work so much they can't be at home with the kids the way they would be normally in their own countries, and so they find that the kids are finding their own path, but they get mixed up in sometimes the wrong crowds, which then leads the kids down the wrong path, which leads to more stress on the parents. Now the kids don't think that the parents get it because the kids have a more Americanized mentality, and then it just becomes a very difficult and challenging situation, and I saw patient after patient after patient with the same struggle you know, like three hours to come to a medical visit, you know, and that's it.

Marco Benitez: 41:47

And at the clinic that I worked at it was walk-in, so it was two hours waiting time. So you got people coming to the front desk. Please, please, please. I have to go back to work and so they're not there to parent the kids. They barely make enough money. They don't have time for themselves On the downtime they do have. Then they have to do oficios en la casa, right? We all know about oficios en la casa, right, so you gotta wash the floor and you know in our culture like the house is clean impeccable.

Marco Benitez: 42:15

That's just how it is, um, but yeah, you know, that's. That's. That's what I came to observe. Again, it's in my own experience and and it's in the people that I interacted with and I don't make a generalization as to every person with whom you know immigrates into the country but for the many that I encountered that shared their story with me, that I saw their stresses, that I had to try and help them in whatever way that I could within my role, absolutely that was one of the biggest factors, at least for them, leading to burnout.

Marco Benitez: 42:50

And then the question is where do you go from there? Where do you go? Do you quit a job? And that makes end meet, so that way you could raise your kids, you could be more present in their life. How do you check your kids' homework when you don't understand the language? How do you advocate to the school for being fair? How can you get a full story when your kid comes home and says oh, I got in trouble because so-and-so was bothering me, but you can't communicate with them? It's such a difficult life and it's like I said, it wasn't one, it was so many people. And then the thought is do I go back to my country. Well, if I go back, it's worse there. It's worse there. There's no opportunities for work there, so it's a very difficult life. It's a very difficult life. There's no easy answer or easy solution to it and, without a doubt, there's a community of people burnt out around those circumstances.

Raul Lopez: 43:45

Yeah, yeah, and I think it's just. It's crazy, I mean, the way you put it all together and you know the level of finances and how much money you can make where it's like. You know, I'm thankful to kind of where I've gotten in my life, that I have the capabilities of being able to say, you know, I would never want to become like a C-level executive, because I want to balance my work-life balance and be at home like my kid and I work from home and I get to take my daughter to soccer and I, you know, do the stuff and I'm thankful that I'm in a situation. But that's not everybody's case. People do have situations where it feels like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Marco Benitez: 44:31

So you know, I guess for people who are dealing with this, you know what are some ways for them to start recognizing that. Maybe you're starting to get into that burnout state. Yeah, so burnout is considered to have an insidious onset. An insidious onset in that it comes in little by little, you know. So there's this story about if you take a frog and you put it in boiling water, it'll jump out. But if you put the frog in warm water and you gradually heat up the water, it'll eventually die not knowing that the water is boiling it. I mean, scientifically, that's not correct.

Raul Lopez: 44:57

But still the story goes that way. It's a cute story, yeah. Well, not cute, but yeah, Poor frog. Poor frog. Bendito. Sana, sana, colito de rana yeah yeah, yeah.

Marco Benitez: 45:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the onset of burnout is very similar in that many times people don't even know that it's happening. They don't even realize it. Read fatigue is the most common symptom. So I would say that if a person is going to a job that they know that they're not happy with and they're constantly tired and tired oh, I'm tired at work, oh, I'm tired at home this may be an indicator that you're already in burnout, because many times you don't know that it's happening. So I've been stressed, I've been stressed, I'm in stress. Now I'm just tired, I'm tired, I'm tired. Yeah, that might be it. Then when you give that, then when you get that, I don't really give a crap. Mentality like I don't care about this job, they don't pay me enough for this.

Raul Lopez: 46:11

That could also be an indicator that you're in burnout. And what are some things that you, when you have your patients and you have your people you're coaching to help them kind of get out of it. Like what, what's some of the you know? I know there's no all of cure, it's not a pill you can take in your your do it, but like, what are some things that you know people could do when they start recognizing some of these things?

Marco Benitez: 46:27

Yeah. So the first thing is just to step back and to realize okay, I'm beginning to notice that there's an excessive amount of fatigue, despite how much I'm sleeping. The first step, the first first first step when I get people, is I tell them go get a checkup. Make sure your checkup is up to date, because there are physical, biological, medical conditions that can mimic some of the symptoms of burnout. So there could be things with that are thyroid related, blood pressure related, um, uh, things with abnormal lipids, so like your cholesterol, things of that nature. Uh, diabetes, depression, uh, anxiety, uh, you know, get your, your, your vitamin levels checked out. So the first thing is go for a checkup. Go for a checkup If all of that is clear. Now we move on to the next thing.

Marco Benitez: 47:13

Let's start to look at what would you do if you knew that you could not fail. So let's say you presented with this Okay, here, look, you could do whatever you want right now and for, in terms of work and a career, what would you do if you knew you could not fail? What's the answer that comes up for you? Write that down. Now we're going to look at this. And how long has that been? And it's it's a reasonable question.

Marco Benitez: 47:37

You want to give an honest answer. You don't want to give something like you know oh, if I knew I could not fail, I'd be a you know, a NBA all-star. Yeah, okay, I mean, you're a 68 year old person, you're not going to get into the. You're not going to get into the MBA just yet, you know. But something realistic if you knew you could not fail, what would you want to do? So if you give yourself an honest, realistic answer now, how long has that been there? Most times, the answer that they put is not something new. It's something that's been there for a while. How they do that work may look different now than it did back then, but the core of what they wanted to do still lies within there. So that would be one of the first things I would do is identify what would I do if I knew I could not fail and get a checkup.

Raul Lopez: 48:24

And get a checkup. Nice nice.

Raul Lopez: 48:26

Well, no, that's good man, that's good, that's good information and, I think, for introspection. You know like, check, listening to yourself, part of your authenticity, aspect of what you're saying is find out what. What drives you. I'm sure is a big factor on, you know, keeping you from feeling because, like you said before, stress doesn't mean you're burnt out. You could be stressed and still be happy at the job yard because you thrive off of stress. Some people thrive off of stress. So you know there's a balance that needs to be done for that so and so, as far as a professional coach that you have or whatever, are there a lot of like burnout coaches? Is it a very niche field?

Marco Benitez: 49:10

I think there's a lot of. There's definitely a lot of coaches out there. Um, there's probably a good amount of burnout coaches. You know, they. They always talk about the riches are in the niches or the reaches are in the niches. Right.

Marco Benitez: 49:22

Um, so you'll, you'll find a few people out there that specialize in healthcare burnout. But coaches, like other professions, you really have to have what I describe as an energetic connection with someone, and I think everyone could relate to that one. Maybe to that one doctor oh, if you ever seen the, you remember it's probably all considered old now. Remember the TV show house? Yes, okay, so this guy was like a brilliant doctor, he was like a class, a jerk, he was like the worst person.

Marco Benitez: 49:56

So, you know, sometimes you just want someone who's academic and intellectual and just top in their field, and sometimes you just need someone that you can really, you know, vibe with. And and I'm sure that there's many coaches out there that are qualified, but not everyone you're going to vibe with, you know. So there's probably a bunch out there, and it's good that there's a bunch out there. You know, competition is good, but we're not all built the same. First of all, there's a lot of programs and there's some people that just put the moniker, the title of coach, without any formal training. So that's one thing to keep in mind.

Raul Lopez: 50:36

So look for all those extra letters at the end of the day.

Marco Benitez: 50:44

Look for the letters and I would even go as far as to say and this might even be a vote in defense of those people that just threw the moniker of coach on there that the letters are important because it shows that someone took the time, the dedication and they passed certain standards, certain exams, to prove that they met the standards to be considered a coach, that they're not just advice giving, because a real coach does not give you advice. A real coach understands that you have the solution to your problems. I'm an expert at active listening and questioning. That's what I do as a coach. I know how to listen, I know how to read between the lines and I know how to ask you the right questions to challenge your current thinking, to challenge what you consider to be truths and to help you unlock the answers that are already within you, because most of the times there are blocks inside.

Marco Benitez: 51:31

There's four blocks that everybody has. That's it. There's only four things that block anyone from moving forward. So, more importantly, after the letters, is having that initial conversation. Some people call it an intro call, some people call it a discovery call or whatever. Have that conversation. They're usually short, between 15 and, if you get someone generous 30 minutes. You know in that time you'll have your answer. If that's the person for you, okay, you'll follow your gut, you'll know and so don't leave a hang on those four things.

Raul Lopez: 52:04

Yeah, go ahead, drink your water.

Marco Benitez: 52:14

I'm parched.

Marco Benitez: 52:15

No, it's all good so the four things, yeah, the four energetic blocks. In my coaching discipline they're known as GALES, G-A-I-L. Gales we put an S because it's multiple right. So I'll do them in reverse, because it goes. When I explain them in reverse, it's going to go from least personal to most personal. So the L is limiting beliefs.

Marco Benitez: 52:41

Limiting beliefs is a thought that holds you back. So an example of this would be someone that says, well, this job does not hire people of my age, or what was that? I think it was Mean Girls, one of these movies that said girls with butts like this don't talk to guys with faces like yours, or something like that. So for the person that believes that, then that becomes a limiting belief. Listen to your internal dialogue. So you want to move forward with, hey, I really want to try and apply for this job. I don't know, they only hire young people there. They only hire young people there. So that's the limiting belief.

Marco Benitez: 53:27

I would be interpretation. So interpretations is more like mind reading. They're going to think this. So an example could be you know, if you're walking in, you're walking into a restaurant with your wife and your wife, for some reason, is on crutches and she's holding her purse on her shoulder and she's on crutches. And then you say, give me your bag. Why no, I got it. No, just give it to me. Why no, I got it. Now you feel bad because now you're walking to the restaurant Like, oh, look at this guy, his wife's on crutches and he wouldn't even hold her bag. So now I kind of like that. That gets into your head. So those are, those are the interpretations.

Marco Benitez: 54:07

A is assumptions. So assumptions is things like, um, past results, future outcomes. So because I applied for this C-level job three times at three different companies and I didn't get it, I'm not going to get a C-level job. It's clear at this point. I'm not a C-level type person. Or I tried three times to talk to this girl. You know, I tried three times to talk to this girl. And you know, three times, or three times, I went up to try and meet someone at a bar and every time I get shot down. I'm just not the kind of person that they want to talk to. So using past results is predicting future outcomes. That would be your assumptions.

Marco Benitez: 54:52

And now the last one is G, which is a gremlin. The gremlin is your inner critic. So the gremlin says I'm not something enough. I call it. You know my coaching discipline, we call it the gremlin. Some people call it your inner critic, but essentially it's that I'm not something in a voice, so I'm not smart enough, I'm not connected enough, I'm not young enough, I'm not trained enough, I'm not experienced enough. Whatever that voice is, that's the gremlin, and that one is the most difficult to overcome. That's why I went in reverse.

Marco Benitez: 55:23

Each one becomes a little bit more challenging to uncover because they're more deeply rooted and the gremlin is very deeply rooted into one's persona, into one's personal experiences. And what I found and I think I wrote a blog on this, I did write a blog on the gremlin once Is that there's different gremlins. So I find that there's a primary gremlin oh, I know what my gremlin is Cool, oh, great, we're going to work on it Fantastic. There's probably a secondary gremlin in there and there's probably a secondary gremlin in there and there's probably a tertiary gremlin behind that, you know. And these gremlins become so big that you don't see them in front of you. You know, you think it's just the landscape, but those are the, those are the four blocks, things that hold you back. Not to leave anyone hanging.

Raul Lopez: 56:11

Yeah, thanks, man. I really appreciate you. You. You leave you letting the secrets out, so so one of the things, too, that you know to mention is I think you started it you have a podcast now too. You know what's your podcast about and what do you hope to accomplish with it.

Marco Benitez: 56:27

Yeah, my podcast is called the Business of being you so, as you may be able to infer from the title, it's a podcast on authenticity. I started it in 2020, 2021, somewhere around there, and so I'm on my third season now, and it's a podcast about authenticity and the different ways people choose to be authentic. The content has been evolving over the last few seasons. The first two seasons really just the first season was really highlighting people in business who chose to be authentic and go into business with that, whatever their authenticity was. The second one was loosely business and then a little bit more community me sharing reflections and things to trigger thoughts on what could be holding you back from being authentic or understanding certain aspects of authenticity. So my goal excuse me, my goal is to inspire people to really look at that one thing or those things within them that people just like we were talking about in the beginning, that people have been telling them hey, you know, you could go somewhere with this, you could start a business with this, you could teach people based on that. Are you really good at that? So I'm, I make these, these videos, and I don't. I try not to do hey guys videos. So by hey guys videos. You know I'm talking about like it was like hey guys, how you doing, or hey guys, I don't. I don't like hey guys videos for me, because I feel a pressure of making an address to a group of people that is acceptable to a group of people. So I try and do videos and content talking to one person. So I say you, I don't say you guys, just you, just one person. And where there's one, there's home, I, I, I, I I'm receiving that. I think I want to move forward with this. I want to try something different. You know, and and and that's my goal with it is if I could connect with them there, that one person, through the podcast, then that may inspire them to take action, to do something. There's a business coach she's pretty famous. Her name is Marie Forleo. I don't know if you ever heard of her, but she's pretty well known out there and she closes her videos with something like because the world needs that special thing that only you can provide. I was like, damn, I should have came up with that. That was good, I should have that worked, perfect for my podcast. But that's essentially the message that I try and share and you know I close my podcast out with. You can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance at doing what you love. So you know that's a big part of the message and the goal that I have with the podcast.

Marco Benitez: 59:42

Like, there's so many things that we do under this belief that we're supposed to do something. I'm supposed to be this. A good wife is supposed to do this. A good manager is supposed to do this. A good boyfriend is supposed to do this. A good manager is supposed to do this. A good boyfriend is supposed to do this. You know there's so many supposed tos and we feel that burden of obligation, and so I want to switch the mindset from this supposed to mindset into I want to do this and I'm going to take a chance on it Because, look, it's either going to work out, which is fantastic, or it's not, and you're still where you're at. You had nothing to lose. So I would say that that's the goal.

Raul Lopez: 1:00:26

Awesome, awesome. Well, you know I really appreciate it. You know I'm glad it's working out, and I kind of feel the same way when I do my podcast. You know if, if one person comes away with something from it, then it's success. You know, and that's that's how I say it. Absolutely.

Raul Lopez: 1:00:41

But I guess you know now that kind of get closer wrapping up time. But usually I ask around this time in the podcast you know if you could go back and talk to a younger version of yourself and give yourself some advice? You know what's something you tell yourself.

Marco Benitez: 1:01:00

Invest in Google. I'm sure you've heard that before. Invest in Google early on. Um, I would probably tell my younger self probably what I tell my clients you are who you are for a reason. You are who you are for a reason. It's not meant to make you feel like an outsider. It's your superpower, it's your secret sauce and your job is to figure out how to use that to help someone else. And if you help enough people, then everything you wanted all the finances, all the community it all comes with it.

Raul Lopez: 1:01:52

Nice, Beautiful. That's awesome. Yeah, it's something that I wish I would have known. I would have thought that way earlier too in my life, instead of trying to chase that, uh, those goalposts that have been set up for me by you know what I thought I needed to be as opposed to trying to be you know more authentic to who I'm supposed to be. So, um and then and that's how it is.

Marco Benitez: 1:02:16

That's the thing. That's the thing, and that that's one of the other things that that, you know, I I discuss with the people that I work with is that everyone is doing the best they can, and you're trying to figure it out. As you went along all those goalposts, you had good intentions, I had good intentions, you know, and I'm not married anymore. You know I had, I tried my best.

Marco Benitez: 1:02:39

That obviously wasn't the best for someone you know wasn't the best for someone you know. In one of my own episodes that I had recently, I had a conversation with someone around the topic of imposter syndrome, which is kind of like feeling out of place, and then, you know, after the episode, we just were chatting about some stuff and we came to realize, like you know, the major imposter syndrome that exists throughout the world is probably parenthood, because a parent, you really are just winging it and the kids think you got to figure it out. But I think that every good parent knows it's funny because we were talking about like I don't think we've ever met a parent that says I'm doing a great job as a parent, I figured it all out, I'm the best parent there is. I don't think I've met any parent that's ever said that. You know, I think we say me parents would say I think I'm doing a good job.

Marco Benitez: 1:03:33

And then you kind of check in with the kids. Yeah, I hope I'm doing a good job, but yeah, that's just how it is and it's not just parenting, it's just like you said. It's following those goalposts in the career and hopefully, if we're lucky enough, we'll realize that we got to get back on the rails of authenticity while we still have some energy left in us.

Raul Lopez: 1:03:55

Yeah, it's funny the way you mentioned it about parents too I have there's a joke I heard from a comedian a while back is never buy parenting books from people with kids If it's not an old person with adult kids that have succeeded in life. They don't know anything about parenting yet. So listening to their advice. But also you know with like the way you said it. You know, I grew up my dad was straight, my parents were straight. I grew up a certain way and I thought you know that's.

Raul Lopez: 1:04:29

You know the way things were. And then there's a lot of stuff that I didn't like the way they did growing up and that I do differently with my daughter. And I sit with my dad and we talk and he's like you know the way I see you do stuff with your daughter. I love and I wish I would have done that with you and I took that as like one of the biggest compliments I could ever get from my dad, where he's telling me that he thinks I'm doing it right, you know, and the whole time I'm like God, I hope I'm not. It's like baking a cake I'm putting everything together.

Marco Benitez: 1:04:57

I hope it doesn't destroy itself in the oven you know, so it's like but yeah, I've had sit downs with my kids, especially after the separation. You know, after after the separation, it's been a few years now, um, and so I had a good amount of time to myself and done a lot of reflection and a lot of continuing my personal growth. But I've sat with my kids and I said, you know, hey, I just want to let you know, I realized, looking back, that I parented you wrong in this way, and I want to let you know that I acknowledge that I parented you wrong in this way and I hope that you don't hold on to that. I want to let you know that I feel like I could have done things differently and I'm trying to do things differently now, you know. So there's moments like that that I just share with the kids. I'm like, yeah, you know, I know I didn't do the best job in this situation, you know, and kids are kids, you know, we love you Dad.

Marco Benitez: 1:05:51

I'm like all right. It's because I bought you ice cream, you know.

Raul Lopez: 1:05:53

But but it's growth and reflecting growth towards kids allowed them to understand that it's okay for them to admit they make mistakes as well and they have an opportunity to learn about growth as well. So you know absolutely kudos, kudos to you on that man. I'm all with him. The same way I. I'll be the first one to apologize to my daughter if I blew up to her too much. I'm like okay, I took that one too far, as opposed to when I was a kid. It was just you, do you? I was like I don't like it that way.

Raul Lopez: 1:06:20

But ultimately, I guess my last question for you is you know how do you say success in Spanglish?

Marco Benitez: 1:06:29

I say that you are successful if you're true to yourself and you just gave it an honest try and you detach yourself from the outcome, be clear on who you are and just try it, share it in the world in whatever way that is. You do that, you're successful. That's it.

Raul Lopez: 1:06:54

Beautiful, very awesome, thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. Like I said, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here. I really hope to have you back in the future for other opportunities. So how can people reach out to you? You know where are you located. What's your socials or your website, or whatever you want.

Marco Benitez: 1:07:11

Yeah, it's all pretty much the same. So the website's coach Marco Bcom be like boy coach Marco Bcom If you make it to the website, you'll find links to everything there, but across all the social networks Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, I think. I don't even know if I use X, formerly known as Twitter, but it's at coach Marco B as well, formerly known as Twitter but it's at coach Marco B as well.

Raul Lopez: 1:07:36

Nice, yeah, I know, and I'll have it all in the descript too when this comes out as well. So, but thank you, marco, so much. I really appreciate you and you know I wish you all the best moving forward. Thank you Appreciate it, man.

Marco Benitez: 1:07:47

Thank you, man Glad for the opportunity and I wish you success in this podcast.

Raul Lopez: 1:07:53

Now you're going to do awesome bro. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm trying trying to make, trying to get that hustle. So I'm enjoying every aspect of it so far and it's been really rewarding and fulfilling. So I feel I feel great about it. So thank you, I can tell bro. Thank you, I appreciate it. So, but for everyone else, as always, I appreciate you guys taking the time and I hope you'll join me again next time as we continue to learn how to say success in Spanglish. Bye.