Breaking Free: Entrepreneurship and Finding True Joy with Mark Worster

Brent Peterson (00:01.16)
Welcome to this episode of Uncharted Entrepreneurship. Today I have Mark Wurster. Mark, tell us about yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and something exciting in business that's happening with you.

Mark Worster (00:12.014)
Well Brent, thanks for having me here. We could take up the rest of the time talking about all the things that I've done and what I'm up to now, but I'll tell you really quickly, I'm the founder of an organization called The New Mysteries and I work in the space of...

helping entrepreneurs, helping people get outside of the stories that they inherited or were given at a very early age that without even having any knowledge of constricts them in their lives day to day. So that's where I work.

Brent Peterson (00:44.19)
That's interesting. How about passions in life? Do you have passions outside of being an entrepreneur?

Mark Worster (00:48.152)
my gosh. No, that right, I mean that right there, that's my passion, that's my life. I was an avid fisherman for most of my life and I still occasionally will do that, but I just love what I do. It really is my calling and it's probably the third or fourth or fifth thing that I've done.

I didn't even want to call it the business world. I'd call it in the world of creating a life of your own choice. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (01:18.65)
Awesome, good. Mark, before we get into content, you have volunteered to be part of the free joke project. I'm going to tell you a joke and all you have to do is give me a rating 8 through 13. So here we go. Studies show that cows produce more milk when farmers talk to them. It's a case of in one ear and out the other.

Mark Worster (01:29.516)
Okay.

Mark Worster (01:45.422)
I'd give that a 10.

Brent Peterson (01:49.757)
Thanks, that's perfect. Thank you.

Mark Worster (01:51.404)
Yep, yep. My five-year-old would give it a 13.

Brent Peterson (01:56.552)
Good. All right. Excellent. Good, Mark. So tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and how you got started.

Mark Worster (01:59.725)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Worster (02:03.95)
Sure. Yeah, Brent. Boy, it's a long winding road. I have been a lot of things in my life. But you know, the thing I did the longest, I think, is I founded an IT company back in 1987, right when PCs just started to be a thing. And so I got in on the front end of that and I ran that company for 30 years.

And in the end of 2017, I sold my shares in that company, majority shares, and entered the healthcare space. so, I had a degree in nursing that I got while I was running the last company. I went to school nights and weekends, I was divorced, my kids are all grown, and I had a lot of time on my hands. So it was like...

Okay, do I become a professional drinker or do I go do something meaningful with my life? And I went to nursing school and graduated in associates in 2014, bachelor's in 2018. And I started down that road and I get into right out of the gate. And when I sold my company at the end of 2017, I got involved in cannabis as a medicine.

And you know, I can tell you that I was cannabis agnostic. I didn't care if you used it. I just never used marijuana, never used cannabis. I went in the Marine Corps when I was 17 and that was sort of the end of anything that I was going to do outside of, you know, the normal drugs that everybody agrees we can use like alcohol and tobacco.

So I got into that space and really dove in and I ended up enrolling in the first graduate level degree course at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. And that was in June of 2019 and it really was literally the first master's level coursework on cannabis as a medicine. And I graduated one of the first 138 in the world with that degree and.

Mark Worster (04:07.95)
And for some reason, I continued down the path of exploring what else was out there and I ended up in the psychedelic medicine space. I ended up part of a startup right in the beginning of the pandemic, a startup in the ketamine home therapy space. And, you know, for those who don't know, ketamine is an anesthetic that's been used since the 1970s. FDA approved in 1970 as an anesthetic.

It's used every day by every anesthesiologist in the world. And they determined 20 years ago that it had this amazing ability to...

treat people who had treatment resistant depression or suicidality and I get involved in this startup and my job in the company was to train the clinicians, physicians and people who had no experience with ketamine, know, psychiatrists and those type of folks and also create the connections to the pharmacies that would make the product.

And so I got a very deep education on ketamine in in regard to mental health and wellness and my my nursing focus became

the psychiatric community. So I started to actively work on acute care units. So I would be working on units where you would have no shoelaces or belt and you would be locked down for a number of weeks or months or however long your stay was. I think that, you know, it's where I was always meant to be. You know, I ran this other IT company. I can tell you that it wasn't by choice.

Mark Worster (05:56.202)
It was by, you know, I thought it was by choice. It was absolutely not Brent. That's why I work in the world of helping people actually create a life that they do choose. But it chose me and I just went down that path and I was in IT for 30 years, not really happy about it.

Made good money, had a good life, should have no complaints at all, but it wasn't satisfying in the least. I can tell you what I do today. I have the most amazing life. I tell people that all the time. I have a life that I am truly joyful and happy every single day. And that's not to say that things in my life don't happen. It just doesn't, it doesn't affect me the way that it used to. Like it's, I've...

I've really eradicated those stories that ruled my life outside of my awareness. And now that's really what I do. I'm passionate about helping people to do that. I when you can step into a life of choosing exactly what you are called to do, and you're joyful and happy about your life,

You can create a life that's just beyond words, And in whatever entrepreneurial space you decide to be in, right? When you're free and clear of having to be any certain way because of the stories and the programming that you get from your parents, your grandparents, society, the culture, you are truly free to create a life beyond all of your expectations.

Yeah, could never have predicted that I would be where I am right now five years ago, 10 years ago, certainly 20 years ago. Never would have happened.

Brent Peterson (07:34.722)
Yeah, that's awesome

Brent Peterson (07:46.536)
there's a entrepreneurship offers that ability to live the life you want to live, but a lot of entrepreneurs are also driven to do the next big thing. And if you read the traction or there's a shiny object that's always driving people forward and there's some people that can never be satisfied. What do you tell that type of entrepreneur where they think they're living the life they want, but they just want more?

Mark Worster (07:53.592)
Mm.

Mark Worster (07:58.083)
Yeah.

Mark Worster (08:01.646)
Yeah.

Mark Worster (08:06.582)
Yeah.

I see that all the time and honestly Brent, a lot of the people that I work with are people who have been super successful in whatever endeavor that they've aspired to. And they've received all of the benefits of that, right? They have all of the material possessions that they could ever want. And they've reached this pinnacle of success and they're not happy and they're just blown away by the fact that they've arrived where they wanted to be.

And they found out that it didn't give them the satisfaction and happiness that they thought it would. So literally that those are the majority of the people that I work with fall into that category. And it's about just really getting to the root of what drove them to this. And it's great. I mean, you you have a great life. You have everything you could ever want. And yet you're miserable. So how to turn that around.

and get on the other side of that. And, you know, it's funny, one of the things that happens when we get through the process and we get through to, you know, really the core of the happiness and the joy, that need for all of the material things kind of goes away. And then it becomes a discussion of how do I reconcile having all of these things that I know don't really bring me happiness?

and to where I am now, and know, just kind of settling into this new life. And boy, anything is possible. It's really about living in the moment and understanding that in the moment you have infinite possibilities. And we kind of, when we get rid of those stories, we create the space for unlimited possibilities to appear. It's really, that's how it is.

Brent Peterson (09:58.996)
So there must be a place or there must be a reason or a place that somebody comes to you and they say, help me do this. And I guess I, my mind is going back to Wall Street and Gordon Gekko and his outlook on things where he would probably never admit that he's unhappy. And the next big thing is always around the corner. Is the first step kind of realizing, hey, maybe this isn't making me happy?

Mark Worster (10:11.639)
Hmm.

Mark Worster (10:18.605)
you

ready.

Mark Worster (10:27.126)
It is that nagging feeling that you have to keep going. That it's going to be the next thing that really is the thing that's going to make you happy and bring you the happiness. I when I sold my company at the end of 2017, I did a few things that next seven year period, eight years it's been.

There were a few things that I did to try to make the next big thing happen, right? New adventures, new ventures, spent a lot of money trying to make the next new business thing happen. And honestly, it wasn't my path. And so they naturally failed because I wasn't, you know, where I was supposed to be on the path that I'm meant to be on. I'm very much a firm believer in, you know...

path is there, know, where the path that you are meant to be on is there. It's just, you aware of it? You know, and are you aware of the little taps from the universe that kind of always put you back on the path? The more that you kind of work in this, in this realm, the more you see very clearly the synchronistic events that keep you moving in the direction you're supposed to be on.

You know, if you look at it, like, if you look at a circle of everything that is possible to be known in the world, in the universe, all knowledge, and you're a dot in the center, there's a small slice of the pie that is the things that we know that we know. Like, I know that I can play guitar, I know that I can drive a car, I know...

that I can do things in the realm of IT or nursing because I'm trained in these things. It's things that I know. Then there's another small slice of the pie. It's the things that I know that I don't know. And I like to point out, if you need brain surgery, I'm not the guy for you because I know I don't know brain surgery, right? Because it's not going to go well for either one of us. But then there's this whole majority of the things that are able to be known in the universe of all things that could be known.

Mark Worster (12:42.766)
that's the we don't know that we don't know. And that's the area of the pie that I work in, that I help people to expose things that are in there because that's where the juice is. That's where the freedom is, Brent.

Brent Peterson (12:59.41)
Yeah, so you're talking about the Johari window and the different parts of that. What do you say to somebody that comes to you, you know, like, let's just say I'm Elon Musk and I say that I'm working 120 hours a week and I take three days off a year to kind of get my sanity back. I suppose anybody can be happy anywhere doing anything, right?

Mark Worster (13:02.976)
Exactly. Yeah.

Mark Worster (13:13.1)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Worster (13:17.571)
Yeah.

Mark Worster (13:21.428)
Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. I don't think there's a magic number of hours like Tim Ferriss, the four hour work week, right? For me, it's not even about work and play anymore. It's about life. Like my life is always in play. Whether I'm working on the new mysteries, whether I'm playing guitar, whether I'm...

with my girlfriend, whether I'm with friends or family, no matter what I'm doing, it's just my life. And so, you know, there's no delineation between work and play like there was. I I lived for Friday night for a long number of years, right? I mean, that was my break, Friday night to Monday. That was, it's not even like that now.

Like I don't, I sometimes honestly, Brent, I have trouble remembering what day it is because I really, there's no tide at a particular day. could be, you know, I could be doing something over the weekend and the new mysteries and then, you know, middle of the week I'll be swimming in the ocean somewhere. It's just, it's just a beautiful homogenous experience of life.

Brent Peterson (14:34.868)
So tell us a little bit about the new mysteries piece you've been mentioning.

Mark Worster (14:38.934)
Yeah, the new mysteries is really, it's a community and an organization that we use a lot of ancient and modern modalities to help to get to those stories, right? You know, for me, part of my story is all these amazing things that I did, all of the successes that I had.

were tied to a story that I received when I was five years old that I was unlovable, right? So everything I needed to do had to be on next level. I had to achieve every like 4.0, cum laude graduation. Like I had to be at the top of the class. If I wasn't one or two in the class, it was an utter failure. Like I was driven to always be impressive because I needed to be impressive for you to love me. And then,

As a result, my father would love me, right? It was this tie to this unknown program. Now, it created a great life, but it wasn't really anything that I chose to do. Do you know what I mean? Those choices were just presented and I went with them because I needed to be impressive. And so we work with things like, you know, breath work and other modalities that...

shut off the conscious mind. Honestly, that's what it does. These practices and programs and processes that we use are really about shutting off the conscious mind and giving access to the subconscious. And then working with that material to really get to those base stories that are driving, you know, everything, all your behavior, really. Yeah.

And if you think about it, it's like you're living in a box of safety. Like your ego creates that zone of safety and that's where you live. And it may be a really good scenario, maybe a really good life, but it's still a box. It's still a prison. Like we get rid of those boxes. We expand the size of that reality that you live in. And then you're able to make a choice as to where you want to be, what you want to do.

Brent Peterson (16:52.564)
Do you have a punch list or how do you get people started when they come to you?

Mark Worster (17:01.45)
You know, there's this, it's really, we do a pretty serious intake, you know, we want to get to understand, understand you, you know, we really need to get the history of who you think you are, right? So we start right at the beginning. Like I do a lot of work in sort of the rebirthing realm.

you know, and I use a particular style of breath work that's been tied to experiencing birth again, because it starts there. Like for the first nine months of your life, you are another person, right? You're not separate from somebody. You are your mother. Like all everything that you are is your mother. Every experience that she has during that nine month period, you are experiencing as well and not as a separate being as a part of her.

And so we start right there and then we work our way out from there. And it's really in that first seven year period is where everything happens. That's where everything's laid in cement outside of our awareness. And then we operate in the world as if we have complete free will and choice. I'm sorry to say brother, that is not the case. That is just not the case. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (18:15.62)
So if you had some advice or not advice, but experience sharing, what would be the first thing you'd tell an entrepreneur to start with?

Mark Worster (18:18.776)
Mm-hmm.

Mark Worster (18:25.716)
I would say start with curiosity. we're, know, entrepreneurs in general are super curious people. Start to be curious about what you might not know. Like what you might not know about yourself, about why you act in certain ways, what drives your behavior. Become curious about that.

Because that's where the access to freedom is. That's where the access to joy and happiness. It's really about living in the moment, Brent. It's about being able to be present in every interaction in your life. I we spend our lives by design, by the way. Our brains are designed to look at the past to predict the future. Look at the past to predict the future. That's what it does in a nanosecond. And so what you get presented with in your reality,

is just a replay of whatever it could find in the back put together with whatever it sees. you know, your opinion of me, this is a gem. Now here's a beauty. This is, I gotta tell you folks, pay attention right now. Other people's opinion of you has nothing to do with you. Whoever you think you are, their opinion of you has nothing to do with you.

because it's made up of all their past experiences put together, has nothing to do with you. And so that right there is a little bit of freedom. Like I lived on the opinion of other people for a really long time with that story of unlovable in play.

Because what would that produce? That would be me always trying to make sure that everybody loves me. And when somebody didn't like me, which had nothing to do with me, I would try so hard to get them to like me. And it would bother me that they didn't. Now I could give a shit less. I don't care if you like me, you don't like me, because I understand it's got nothing to do with me.

Mark Worster (20:28.782)
And I have the most, oh my God, I have the most beautiful relationships. I have people that love me and that I love, and it's because we just choose to. It's outside of all of those past, yeah, those past experiences. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (20:48.306)
That's awesome Mark, so we have about five minutes left. As I close things out, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they want. What would you like to plug today?

Mark Worster (20:55.598)
you

my gosh, I'd like to plug joy and happiness, Brent. If you want to live a joyful, happy life, and if you automatically just said, that's bullshit, you can't, this life isn't built like that, I'm sorry to say you're wrong. You're just, you've been programmed to believe that, somebody told you that, and you've taken it on as truth. If you want to live a joyful, happy life, come explore the new mysteries. We'd love to show you how to live that life.

Super simple once you get to it. you know, gosh, I don't know, I guess that's the plug, man. That is the plug. If you want to live a life of joy and happiness, because that for me is what it's all about. Having been, you know, in that world of depression, in that world of being treated in the psychiatric community, taking every drug, every therapy that you can possibly take.

Being outside of that for a number of years now with no medication and no depression and literally joy and happiness every single day. Like I am a huge advocate for you to give that a shot as well. And I'd be happy to share how to do it.

Brent Peterson (22:09.746)
That's ours then, Mark, how can people get in hold of you?

Mark Worster (22:13.102)
You know, probably LinkedIn's pretty easy to find me. You know, I've got a profile up there. It's got my contact info. Reach out. You know, mark at the new mysteries.org is my email address. And yeah, reach out. I welcome that. It's what I live for. It's what I'm about. Yeah. Happy to have a conversation and talk about whatever it is you want to talk about. Yeah.

Brent Peterson (22:36.468)
That's awesome, Mark. Mark Worcester, it's been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for being here today.

Mark Worster (22:42.264)
Brent, thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate the invite and I'm just so happy to be here.

Brent Peterson (22:49.876)
Thanks.