June 15, 2025 • 34 mins
What if you could trade your career ambitions for your true dream life?
Belle uncovers the extraordinary journey of Mark Jensen, who left his acting career behind to pursue the ultimate sailing life. Motivated by the law of attraction teachings from The Secret (2006), Mark shifted his mindset from chasing external success to manifesting his deepest desires. His story is packed with real-life adventure: a global voyage, encounters with pirates, and unexpected romance on the open seas. If you’ve ever dreamed of escaping the ordinary, breaking free from routine, or creating a life of freedom and authenticity, Mark’s journey will show you what’s possible. Tune in for powerful insights on personal growth, self-belief, and living your dream life, whether that means setting sail or simply daring to follow your heart. Inspired by this episode? Follow Step Into Me and leave a five-star review to help others discover how to turn their dreams into reality.
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DISCLAIMER: The information shared in this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a medical professional. If you’re experiencing health or mental health issues, please seek advice from a qualified healthcare provider.
CREDITS: Theme Music: "Strive to Be Better" by Craig Riley (licensed) Incidental Music: "Palm and Soul" by Kevin MacLeod (freepd.com)
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Before this episode begins just a quick reminder that I'm not a health or medical professional.
(00:05):
The information I share on this podcast is intended only to educate, inspire, uplift,
and support you on your life's path. If you believe you may have a psychological or medical
condition, please seek help from a qualified health or medical professional.
Hello and welcome to Episode 4 of Step Into Me. This is the show where we explore what it truly
(00:28):
means to find the courage to be true to yourself. And today's guest is the perfect example of that.
I've known Mark Jensen for almost 30 years. He is quite an Aussie character. You are in for a treat.
When we met, Mark was an actor. He was playing the lead in the production of the Aussie
(00:48):
theatre classic Don's Party. He's appeared on All Saints, featured on ads for the Sydney Olympics.
He was a contestant on The Mole, even had a part in a Bollywood movie. And he had a day job too,
working as part of the breakfast team of a Sydney radio show. Well like most people,
Mark had career aspirations and thought he was on the right path. That was until a friend handed
(01:11):
him a copy of The Secret, the Law of Attraction documentary that had everyone talking.
It is the most amazing thing that you are living the billionaire Iifestyle on absolutely not a billionaires budget.
If you have ever imagined giving up your day job to live your dream life, this episode is for you.
(01:35):
So grab a cup of tea, settle in and join us as we chart a course with my good friend, Mark Jensen.
He'll be chatting to us via satellite phone. This episode is from The Secret to The Sea (01:42):
When Intention
Sets Sail. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to leave your job behind and set sail to
travel the world? Well picture this (02:01):
It's 2007. You're sitting in your living room, skeptical,
maybe even a little cynical. A friend has given you a copy of The Secret video. You pop it in the
machine and press play, expecting very little. But then a single sentence changes everything.
(02:25):
Well that was really an interesting moment of my life. I really don't like self-help books or
self-help ideas and these books are written by somebody who is trying to make money and they have
one kernel of truth. But it's always two-thirds of the way through. So when this friend gave me this video to watch,
this video to watch, I only watched it to be able to prove my point. Anyway at minute 57, they popped the kernel of truth out.
(02:55):
and that's the one that said all of the goals that I've been working on, I've been goal setting
for work and trying to do this and trying to do that. And that's what I've been doing as working
as an actor. But this kernel of truth said that's wrong. Goals have got to be about me and my life.
So if money was no object, if I had plenty of money or and you didn't have to work, what would
(03:18):
you do? And I'd always dreamt someday I'd sail around the world. I'd been sailing since I was a kid.
But it's never been a thing. And so this video said, set a goal for your life and put it
on paper and put a date with it. So I got out a piece of paper and said,
"I want to sail around the world, how much is it going to cost? Buy a boat. One million dollars.
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Budget each month to do this much shopping, this month staying in a marina.
That sort of stuff." So I put a date of 12 months just as a joke and that date was the fourth
of February. And I stuck this piece of paper on my desk in front of me and then every couple of
days for the first few days, I'd add another... What about that? That's another thousand dollars a month.
(04:02):
The figures were realistic but really stupidly high. And then every couple of weeks,
I just looked at the page and I thought, "Well, I don't need that." And I just crossed it out.
I remember what the line was. I'd said that once a month you've got to go to a resort hotel to have
a proper wash, proper shower, proper relax, proper beer, proper food. And I just thought,
(04:27):
"You don't need that. If you want to go for a swim in a swimming pool, just jump over the side of the
boat and swim around the boat." And then as the weeks went by, I just kept on crossing more things out
or adjusting them and thought, "Well, I don't need that much money." Clothing, two pairs of shorts and two
t-shirts for the next year. That's fine. So it started getting to a point where some of the numbers were
(04:50):
getting realistic, but it's still got to be able to afford it. You know, I did have an apartment,
but that wasn't really good to rent out and so I had to change that one that could be rounded out.
Anyway, it was coming up to that 12 months. So I booked an air ticket out of Australia because the
boat prices in Australia were too expensive. And so I'd been doing a bit of research around the world.
(05:11):
America's got some pretty cheap boat prices. So I flew there, two suitcases, drove around the
US, looking for a boat. They were all overpriced there, went down to the Caribbean, found one,
jumped on the boat, and there I was a year later, sitting on the boat, you know, it was one year and one
month or something since I'd watched this video and it all came true. And it was just because I changed
(05:35):
goals from somebody else's goal of, "What job are you going to be doing to what goal do I want for my life?"
And that's it. But that was also your dad's life goal too, wasn't it? And his story is quite a sad
one, isn't it? Oh, Belinda. That you remember this is really amazing because I haven't told you
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this story for decades. So that you remember that it's, it's really important because my dad died at 65
and I'm 65 now. And when this happened was 17 years ago, 2008. And I thought a lot of male deaths
(06:17):
are hereditary, he has a heart problem, I'm going to get a heart problem. So I thought the only time I've got is
only to 65. Now he'd been sailing all his life and we sailed together, raced together on his boat when
I was a little kid and then I went off racing on other boats and he kept on sailing and racing and he
retired and he was waiting for the six months for mum to retire and then they were going to go cruising
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up down the east coast of Australia. And anyway, while dad was waiting for mum to retire, he died,
had a heart attack. So, you know, I mean there's so many things in there, one - don't wait six months
for somebody to go yourself, she could have caught up with him somewhere up the coast of whatever.
The last couple of years of his work, even though he was a very senior engineer, you know, the young
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guns were getting all the good jobs, all this sort of stuff. So yeah, my dad did teach me a lot of,
you know, with his death. And now I'm at his age, I'm fully fit. Man, I go to the gym.
whenever I'm in a place with a gym I'm there because yes, it's pressing. It's a weird feeling.
And really it's in that nutshell with your dad's story is the whole point really of what you've done
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because so many people wait until they're retired. I think some people don't realize that you can do that
with very small amount of money. A very small amount of money, but the thing is we've probably been in a
similar situation before when we've bought something big, when you bought your first house or something
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like that. You know that first year is a killer. Where does all this other money go to? All the money,
you didn't, I think because you didn't know existed. All of a sudden you've got a buy furniture
which was fine sitting on the carpet for the first week, but then you had to go and buy a washing machine,
and an oven, and all of this sort of garbage and you've got no money.
It happened a few times in your life and you remember when you really don't have any money for the first
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year of sailing on this boat and I thought my budget after looking at that budget page for a year
was good, but I each month when I get my cash, I get it in cash and I had these all the
envelopes on the deck or on the navigation station where I'm sitting right now talking to you. And on each
envelope I put the money. So it was like, oh, this is going to be customs and immigration and
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harbour fees in this envelope and this envelope here is going to be for boat maintenance and you put
all the money in each of the different envelopes in the label of the envelopes and the envelope on
the far right hand side, that was for any leftovers went into that envelope on the far right hand side
and that envelope was slim. Like you couldn't iron an envelope any slimmer than that envelope
(09:04):
and written on that envelope was one big word - food. Right. It's that tough, you know, people thought,
oh, I'm actually living the life. and I say to them, well, you give up your high-paying job,
lose all your friends because you're sailing away from them. It's not the bed of roses to begin with
especially at first. It's really tough, but you got to do it. You're a bit like the Crocodile Dundee of the ocean,
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aren't you? You see hurdles and barriers and obstacles and you just barge your way through them like
you find a way, don't you? Yeah, look, I think that's really important because the world puts a
barrier in front of you or a hurdle, but you've got to get over the hurdle. Nothing good comes from
not getting over the hurdle. So if you imagine something simplistic like going to the supermarket to buy a
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good healthy chunk of beef at a low price, so you're going to the supermarket. Now it's not there showing
you, oh, this is the piece of good beef that's on sale, you've got to find it, you've got to go through
every other piece of meat, you've got to go through the lamb, the pork, the chicken, the this, that,
now that you've got to jump all these hurdles and then you've got to find where the one is that's
(10:15):
on special and that's like jumping a little hurdle. Everything that happens on this boat is a hurdle.
So, you know, there is this saying, I stole this from somebody who says, "Everything you want is on the
other side of slaying dragons. I've got to do it. I've got to slay the dragons. I've got to get over
the hurdles. I've got to do it and I've got to expect the hurdle is going to be there because I tell
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you what, every time I try and do something, you bump into another hurdle." Well, forget about dragons,
you've actually had an encounter with pirates as well, haven't you? That was really bizarre. So
in the Gulf of Aden when we went through was just when the Channels, this couple who are on a sailing,
(10:59):
boat had been abducted and were hostages. So, a group of us tried to go through, you know,
a flotilla of 26 boats in a grid because we thought, "Oh, you're being together with everybody,
everybody we're going to be safer. We were going down the Gulf of Aden and they wanted to drop into Aden,
the city in Yemen and I'm going, "Are you guys crazy? I mean, the Minister of something, had just been
(11:22):
assassinated the week before there. I'm going, "I'm not stopping there." So we left the flotilla,
we left the other 25 boats and went and did the last bits ourselves and what the pirates do is they
come between sunset and when it's dark. So they've got about 20 minutes to get to you where they can
attack you and then they've got darkness to be able to do whatever they want. In that moment, there was
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this yelling on the two-way radio and it was a container ship and the container ship was coming up
behind us and the captain was panicking. You never heard a captain on a huge container ship panicking
and he was coming up on our port side and he was saying these pirates are on my port side. So
they were on the other side of the container ship. The line-up went, you know, from right to left,
(12:08):
was us then the container ship and then the pirate boat and I could see with my binoculars as the
as the ship came past us and he was going to flat out. Never seen a container ship going this fast. So he
was pedal to the metal, I'll tell you what, he went straight past us and right behind him and I
could see with the binoculars and then I didn't have to see with the binoculars because we were right
(12:30):
there. You see the huge back of the container ship and there's a tiny little boat with about six
or eight people with machine guns on it and they were all looking up at the back of the ship to work out
how to get on to the ship and because they were looking at the ship they weren't looking at me.
So I spun the wheel, turned around, hit the throttle, went in the opposite direction and while they
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were still looking at the ship I disappeared into the darkness otherwise if they'd seen us we were
much easier target. So yeah, it was amazing. Were you with Marjorie at this point because you've
found love on your travels as well haven't you? Ah yes, yes so there's two parts of my life, there's
BM and AM so BM is Before Marjorie and now I'm in bliss, I'm in AM bliss. So I went into
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Cherbourg in France which you'll know because it's where the D-Day beaches are and in
some parts of France not many people speak English so they had this group that met at the bar
once a week called the Cherbourg English Cafe and I met everybody who spoke English in town.
Then Marjorie and I were introduced by one of those people and we were at this
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cafe and we got on pretty well together so that was amazing and I thought it was on that night
but Marjorie tells me it was a couple of weeks later. It may have been the next night but I said to her
"Look I'm on a boat, I'm sailing around the world, if you want to go out with me you're on the boat,
(14:14):
you quit your job, you get rid of your apartment, you sell your furniture, you bring a very small
suitcase and one teddy bear and you get on my boat." And that appealed? I think it took her a little while
she's sitting next to me laughing her head off so she said to me "I've got to live with her in her apartment for
(14:34):
six months" and I thought "oh yeah well that's no worries, I will spend the time on the boat" but
then COVID came and we were so we were locked down in her apartment for six months looking at each
other so we survived that so that was like being on a boat so then she came on the boat and we've been
going out together for five years. You're now married too. "Oh yeah we got married, we got
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that, that was great, we got married in France." Now how has Marjorie adapted to life at sea because
obviously this wasn't necessarily her life goal so how is that working for the two of you?
Well the beginning part was rather interesting because I took her out for a couple of day sails
and then we were going to do like a test but a but a long one in the English Channel and I was
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going to sail over to England and I had 22 cases of French wine on the boat in the half cabin
because you can get wine in France is much cheaper than anywhere else in the world. So I had all these
22 boxes of wine and she was coming for the first couple of days and then she was going to come back home
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so we got about three or four hours off the coast and the engine broke down so I told her to move the
22 cases of wine out of the half cabin so I could get into the engine and she was at this stage
thought she was going out with a lunatic broken down in the middle of the ocean with ships rolling
all around the place and the reefs coming up on her really fast. It was pretty intense
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if anybody knows the Alderney Race we were in there which is a tidal race or the rocks we were very
close to that about a mile if I didn't fix the boat we would have been few barnacles off the
keel. So anyway we got the 22 cases of wine off the engine pulled the engine apart got working
so that was it and then went back to Cherbourg and the very next time that she came out on the boat
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we did a passage from Cherbourg which was nonstop because we were still in COVID we had to escape from
Cherbourg in the north of France to the Caribbean direct that was the first time she was on the boat
for me anytime 37 days Goodness she obviously loves it though. She loves the sailing she doesn't love me
but we're about a week before we arrived in the Caribbean so we're already done 30 days at sea
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I planned on about 24 days so we had good food for 24 days so we would you know a weekend a pretty crook
food you know if you like eating Spam we've got plenty of it still and a week before we got into the
Caribbean she said I'd like to stay out here for another week or two. Oh wonderful. Just amazing so
I thought well she's a keeper. So do you guys I mean how long do you plan to do it you've been doing
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it well you've been doing it Mark for 17 years do you have now any other sort of life goals on the
horizon or is this just let's just keep going day by day and we'll just see where it takes us.
A really great question the boat and the life has evolved a little bit so when I first got the boat
the goal was go cruise around the world well I've done that I've sailed around the world
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down the circumnavigation we are looking fairly soon for another boat a little bit bigger boat and
we're going to do another circumnavigation with this one together but what the change is is that
it's now not a sailing based life it's a tourism based life so the boat we can sail wherever
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we want in the world so a couple years ago we were in London for instance I love being in
London in St. Catherine's dock for six months and then sail to the next place we went over to New York
and were in New York for three months you can't afford accommodation for six months in London and
you cannot afford accommodation for three months in New York so with the boat we've got two bedrooms
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we've got two bathrooms and we've got a kitchen we've got a big freezer and so we can eat on the boat
we can go to the supermarket in London or supermarket in New York and eat well there so the thing is
changed slightly in that it's really a tourism back thing even though there's lots of sailing in it
so we're still into that for maybe at least the next five years because as I said we are looking for
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another boat but after that we've been thinking things when we're in the north of the United States
a couple of months ago we went up to Vermont to see the autumn colors on the leaves change where they
go from green to all these different colors absolutely fantastic but love wildlife out there
and there's some remote wilderness areas that you can if you can buy a little bit of land there
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and you can have the bears come in and you can have the deer come in and chipmunks and squirrels and
all of this sort of stuff and I thought well that would be that would be really nice but you could
also you know we're looking at some in France as well and Australia so if you're looking at the right
place and it's not agricultural land it's very important point here if it's non-agricultural land
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because you know it's up a mountain or something it can be really quite cheap so the prices on it
can be really low so that might be a thing that we do sometime but also we we just spent three months in
a in a camping van in Vermont and we spent three months two years ago in Australia in a camping van
it's just a wonderful way to see stuff so whether it's on the boat or in a van or on a plot of land
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or something it's all about what we want to do. So tell us where in the world are you guys at the moment
and where are you heading? so we've just had a couple of weeks sailing down from the north of the USA
the Cape Hatteras area in North Carolina was a state and we sailed straight down to St. Martin now our
last couple of months have been pretty busy okay doing a lot of tourism stuff but we also had the boat
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in a boat yard doing boat maintenance on it for a couple of months it's been pretty hard work
and then when we got down here wanted to have a bit of a relax and now we've sailed down just a half
a day sail between St Martin and St Barts I'll tell you about St Barts and just a second but half
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way in between there's a tiny little island it's totally uninhabited there's no buildings on it
no shops on it no bars on it the whole island is in a wedge-shaped thing a couple of hundred meters
on each side and inside the wedge there's a tiny little beach about a hundred meters long
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where anchored closest into the beach there's five boats here actually just let me see because
one of the boats may have left we think there's going to be yet one boat's just going out so there's
four boats in here a whole island all to ourselves there's no trees on it there's like all these
different types of biodiversity grasses is unbelievable and all these flowers the snorkeling here is
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fabulous and we're just having a week here total chill out we're not knowing any tourism we're not doing
anything apart from snorkeling and walking on the beach and then walking up this these four little
volcanic plugs on this little island we don't walk up to each and and that is all we're doing is
nothing You really are living the dream the billionaires dream A couple of miles in the other
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direction where we're going to next after after we leave here is St Barts and you may have heard this
is also called St Bartholomew is the correct pronunciation and but it's correct name for
it's don't know about pronunciation now that's for all of the the world's billionaires go at Christmas
and New Year and they'll jump on their super yachts and go over there to St Barts to live up the
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Christmas New Year's a whole great cluster of billionaires and it is really quite unbelievable there's
none there at the moment I've checked I've checked them out I can actually see electronically where all
these super yachts are but we've been here at Christmas a couple of times and it is amazing you can
go star spotting on any of the streets or any of the beaches there if you watch movies you'll see
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the movie stars because all the rich billionaires want a movie star on their boat at Christmas and New Years
sort of gives them credibility so that is just a really weird joy and then we're going down through the
rest of the Caribbean islands will be in Grenada in about a month or so because it's the hurricane season
coming on here But you are living the billionaire lifestyle aren't you on a on a on a what a beer budget?
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Yeah, and the funny thing about it in St Barts and when I say billionaires go the yacht crews
are not allowed off the boats during Christmas New Year because they've got all the guests on and they've
got to be all things so all the yacht crews are on the boats polishing and doing all that crap all the
billionaires are in town there's one bar called Le Select so before I tell you that Le Select and I tell
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you all the restaurants and bars and some bars are really expensive to spend a thousand dollars for
dinner for two is not difficult at all we haven't we haven't obviously we eat on the boat but
there is one bar called Le Select which is affordable you know the beers are your normal four dollars or
or whatever and everybody goes to the one affordable bar in the whole town everybody packed in there
(24:11):
billionaires non billionaires actors non actors it's the funniest thing and then there's this beach
called Shell Beach and you go there for free it's not one of these ones covered with umbrellas it's
just a free beach going there sit out and every other billionaire is trying to get on this beach
it's that famous I've got to be there or got to be seen on Shell beach so it is the most amazing thing
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that you are living the billionaire lifestyle on absolutely not a billionaires budget but this is
the thing about all around the world wherever you are in the world a city or an island or a sea
or a continent or whatever everything is so different and we can be exploring it forever and I
(24:57):
don't think there's a difficulty about about doing that So for the person who's listening who is
just so envious of you right now you and Marjorie just thinking I want this lifestyle what's your
advice for them? Facilitate your goals by using a job to make the money and don't waste the money
(25:20):
I'll tell you a story I came back to Australia, didn't have accommodation was staying with a friend
for a few days and she pulled out a hundred dollar note out of a wallet and said go after the
pub and get two bottles of wine and make sure it's nothing under forty dollars because any bottle of wine
under forty dollars is garbage I'd never bought a bottle of wine for forty dollars that was
(25:43):
1993 this is 2025 I have still not ever bought a bottle of wine
which is forty dollars you know now I've never spent more than ten bucks on a bottle of wine even
now thirty years later so if you're using money as a facilitated to make your goal unless you're
goal is to become a wine a wine expert don't waste money on garbage but if you've got your goal
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I am going to sail around the world or I am going to buy my own farm or I'm going to do this
then it's easy for you to say and say why am I buying a forty bucks bottle of wine that's stopping me
from sailing around the world That's really good advice you know because I think so many of us
you know even just the magazines and all those things they add up do I need to buy magazines
(26:33):
if I want to be sailing the world? Exactly a lot of the magazines and stuff online that you can
download and all the forms and stuff like that you know the whole goal setting thing is about each of
us individually my dream in my life is going to be totally different from everybody else so it
doesn't need to be sailing everybody's different so when I'm saying you set your life goal you can
(26:59):
do that now sometimes people say well I don't have any I mean I'm just working I've got another
forty years' work to do I don't have it and I said well you're going to go get bored and then you
might be able to figure out something which is about you and they say what do you mean by go get bored
we need to watch tv and you don't read books you don't read the media or anything all of a sudden
your own mind starts ticking over. Belinda do you know what a writer's retreat is where they've got a
(27:24):
little hut or a room or something they rent out to writers or artists where you don't do anything
you're just there with your typewriter? I have a girlfriend who actually runs a writer's retreat
so I'm quite familiar with them. All right great well that would be a great place to be bored because if
you don't take a computer and you're not a writer just go book a writer's retreat it's just for
you just go to sit there for a week get really bored and then your mind will start thinking about
(27:48):
the pleasures of of life and the other thing is you might not know what your one is or you might
think I have always sort of thought I wanted to do this now as a boy of my age when we grew up
we had all of these books still about World War Two and I always wanted to fly flying one day I
(28:08):
thought well why don't we go fly a plane and so we're being serious and after whatever I was doing
that and I went down to Camden Airport to tiny little airport with no planes or anything
and they had a pilot school and I said I don't want to do the whole course because flying course
is really expensive I said all I want to do is I just take me up for two hours I want to be able to
(28:31):
fly the plane teach me how to get left and right teach me how to go up and down I don't care
about landing or taking off or anything those things are complicated but just I just want to go up and
fly and if I really like it then I'll book and do a course anyway I went up and I learned to fly
to actually learn to fly and I up down left right but you're not learning all of the technical stuff
(28:53):
and not learning all the administration or regulation but after that two hours I thought hey that's
fine that's cool but it's not a big enough thing for me to want to go spend thousands of dollars on
and I meant that's what you can do if you get an idea after seven days of boredom and you start
plucking ideas out of your head of what you could do we can go do a course we can go join the club
(29:14):
or you can go find a way of getting into it just a little taste test that to see if you're going to like it
I remember you sending me a photo of you in the plane and all those years ago
I was proud of that. Belinda I've got an affirmation that I say can I tell you what it is
I would love to hear your affirmation Mark. This affirmation changed my life everybody says oh
(29:37):
you know you're you're living the life of luxury and enjoyment and doing his accident
you want to do so I had to write this affirmation because sometimes I'm not enjoying I'm not enjoying
it so I'm not letting myself enjoy it all the time anybody knows anything about boats knows if
there's boat maintenance to do which is pretty horrible one of the problems is in the bathrooms
(30:01):
that it's not like a toilet in a house not like the the lavatory that you know
but the pipes really narrow and it clogs up yeah and so guess who the person is who has got to unplug it
that's it we're lucky we have two bathrooms put in that way it's always it being convenient time for
so anyway now they can you get into this because if I get into this you know I'm not enjoying
(30:26):
something so anyway I've listened to a Scott Adams thing and he said you know the right
affirmation about yourself what you want to change and say it every day out loud so here's my affirmation
today I Mark will enjoy myself I say that out loud every day today I
Mark will enjoy myself and I do I enjoy myself every single day and any day that I'm not enjoying
(30:51):
myself I think well it's not midnight yet do something to enjoy yourself go enjoy yourself do
something so even though I've got to do the boat maintenance I've got to unblock the lavatory pipes
I can still say right when that's finished I'm going to enjoy myself and I do every day now that's
a me thing this is totally an utterly selfish and people people don't realize you need to be
(31:16):
a bit selfish in your life you I'm not saying today Marjorie and I will enjoy ourselves I'm not saying
that I'm saying today I Mark will enjoy myself, she's got to enjoy herself as well everybody's got
you got you can't tell today the family will enjoy themselves no it's up to you to enjoy yourself
other people you know it's up to them to enjoy themselves and I've been saying that affirmation
(31:42):
of myself well well well absolutely setting the intention isn't it for the day like you you intend
yeah like you said after you've cleaned the toilet that at some point you will enjoy yourself
yeah absolutely straight after this interview I'm diving in the over the side of the boat
and going going snorkeling and the beautiful coral here with those coral fish it's
(32:02):
I'm going to enjoy myself and then the rest of the day is just relaxing I don't have to do anything
so it's good now but I added another affirmation so it's a different affirmation from that so today I'm
up on and done myself is my affirmation and then there's the second one that I say today I will not
do things I don't enjoy today I will not do things that I don't enjoy okay came you it on this one
(32:27):
yes I still got to clean out the bathroom I still got to do the dishes still got to maintain the boat
you know we've still got our life stuff but I'm not going to do things that I don't enjoy now that
means if something is going on so if somebody says come to the movie tonight it's really great movie
it's a horror movie we're all going all six of us well I'm not going to do it because I don't like
(32:52):
Frank and Tom and I don't like horror movies and and that so what often we do is we go okay well I go
along and watch the movie I'll be scared but I won't tell anybody and I'll try and have a big smile
on my face and I won't talk to Frank and Tom so now I say no I'm not going to go I'm not going to
enjoy that so I'm not going to go oh I love that so much I've only had to actually use it a
(33:18):
couple of times but I tell you what the other night when I use it it was bliss What a life Mark thank
you so much for chatting with me I absolutely have adored speaking with you it's just been wonderful
talking to you I mean it's been quite a while I will go and put on my fins and my mask and go
cuddle up to some fish on the bottom of the Caribbean sea Well you enjoy it well what an
(33:43):
inspiration I got to say when Mark set off in 2008 I don't think any of his friends not me that's
for sure thought that he would still be sailing the world in 2025 but it just goes to show
that you don't need to win the lottery to win at life so what is in your heart if you were to swap
(34:04):
your career goals for a life goal what would you choose maybe it's time to write your dream
life list just as Mark did and who knows after a while yours may also shift from being a wish list
to suddenly becoming a to-do list can you imagine what do you plan to do with the rest of your one
(34:24):
precious life thank you so much for listening to this episode if you enjoyed it please share it
with your friends give it five stars and follow the series so you don't miss an episode I'm
Belinda Lee this is Step Into Me helping you find the courage to be true to yourself
Before this episode begins just a quick reminder that I'm not a health or medical professional.
(00:05):
The information I share on this podcast is intended only to educate, inspire, uplift,
and support you on your life's path. If you believe you may have a psychological or medical
condition, please seek help from a qualified health or medical professional.
Hello and welcome to Episode 4 of Step Into Me. This is the show where we explore what it truly
(00:28):
means to find the courage to be true to yourself. And today's guest is the perfect example of that.
I've known Mark Jensen for almost 30 years. He is quite an Aussie character. You are in for a treat.
When we met, Mark was an actor. He was playing the lead in the production of the Aussie
(00:48):
theatre classic Don's Party. He's appeared on All Saints, featured on ads for the Sydney Olympics.
He was a contestant on The Mole, even had a part in a Bollywood movie. And he had a day job too,
working as part of the breakfast team of a Sydney radio show. Well like most people,
Mark had career aspirations and thought he was on the right path. That was until a friend handed
(01:11):
him a copy of The Secret, the Law of Attraction documentary that had everyone talking.
It is the most amazing thing that you are living the billionaire Iifestyle on absolutely not a billionaires budget.
If you have ever imagined giving up your day job to live your dream life, this episode is for you.
(01:35):
So grab a cup of tea, settle in and join us as we chart a course with my good friend, Mark Jensen.
He'll be chatting to us via satellite phone. This episode is from The Secret to The Sea (01:42):
When Intention
Sets Sail. Have you ever imagined what it would be like to leave your job behind and set sail to
travel the world? Well picture this (02:01):
It's 2007. You're sitting in your living room, skeptical,
maybe even a little cynical. A friend has given you a copy of The Secret video. You pop it in the
machine and press play, expecting very little. But then a single sentence changes everything.
(02:25):
Well that was really an interesting moment of my life. I really don't like self-help books or
self-help ideas and these books are written by somebody who is trying to make money and they have
one kernel of truth. But it's always two-thirds of the way through. So when this friend gave me this video to watch,
this video to watch, I only watched it to be able to prove my point. Anyway at minute 57, they popped the kernel of truth out.
(02:55):
and that's the one that said all of the goals that I've been working on, I've been goal setting
for work and trying to do this and trying to do that. And that's what I've been doing as working
as an actor. But this kernel of truth said that's wrong. Goals have got to be about me and my life.
So if money was no object, if I had plenty of money or and you didn't have to work, what would
(03:18):
you do? And I'd always dreamt someday I'd sail around the world. I'd been sailing since I was a kid.
But it's never been a thing. And so this video said, set a goal for your life and put it
on paper and put a date with it. So I got out a piece of paper and said,
"I want to sail around the world, how much is it going to cost? Buy a boat. One million dollars.
(03:42):
Budget each month to do this much shopping, this month staying in a marina.
That sort of stuff." So I put a date of 12 months just as a joke and that date was the fourth
of February. And I stuck this piece of paper on my desk in front of me and then every couple of
days for the first few days, I'd add another... What about that? That's another thousand dollars a month.
(04:02):
The figures were realistic but really stupidly high. And then every couple of weeks,
I just looked at the page and I thought, "Well, I don't need that." And I just crossed it out.
I remember what the line was. I'd said that once a month you've got to go to a resort hotel to have
a proper wash, proper shower, proper relax, proper beer, proper food. And I just thought,
(04:27):
"You don't need that. If you want to go for a swim in a swimming pool, just jump over the side of the
boat and swim around the boat." And then as the weeks went by, I just kept on crossing more things out
or adjusting them and thought, "Well, I don't need that much money." Clothing, two pairs of shorts and two
t-shirts for the next year. That's fine. So it started getting to a point where some of the numbers were
(04:50):
getting realistic, but it's still got to be able to afford it. You know, I did have an apartment,
but that wasn't really good to rent out and so I had to change that one that could be rounded out.
Anyway, it was coming up to that 12 months. So I booked an air ticket out of Australia because the
boat prices in Australia were too expensive. And so I'd been doing a bit of research around the world.
(05:11):
America's got some pretty cheap boat prices. So I flew there, two suitcases, drove around the
US, looking for a boat. They were all overpriced there, went down to the Caribbean, found one,
jumped on the boat, and there I was a year later, sitting on the boat, you know, it was one year and one
month or something since I'd watched this video and it all came true. And it was just because I changed
(05:35):
goals from somebody else's goal of, "What job are you going to be doing to what goal do I want for my life?"
And that's it. But that was also your dad's life goal too, wasn't it? And his story is quite a sad
one, isn't it? Oh, Belinda. That you remember this is really amazing because I haven't told you
(05:57):
this story for decades. So that you remember that it's, it's really important because my dad died at 65
and I'm 65 now. And when this happened was 17 years ago, 2008. And I thought a lot of male deaths
(06:17):
are hereditary, he has a heart problem, I'm going to get a heart problem. So I thought the only time I've got is
only to 65. Now he'd been sailing all his life and we sailed together, raced together on his boat when
I was a little kid and then I went off racing on other boats and he kept on sailing and racing and he
retired and he was waiting for the six months for mum to retire and then they were going to go cruising
(06:42):
up down the east coast of Australia. And anyway, while dad was waiting for mum to retire, he died,
had a heart attack. So, you know, I mean there's so many things in there, one - don't wait six months
for somebody to go yourself, she could have caught up with him somewhere up the coast of whatever.
The last couple of years of his work, even though he was a very senior engineer, you know, the young
(07:05):
guns were getting all the good jobs, all this sort of stuff. So yeah, my dad did teach me a lot of,
you know, with his death. And now I'm at his age, I'm fully fit. Man, I go to the gym.
whenever I'm in a place with a gym I'm there because yes, it's pressing. It's a weird feeling.
And really it's in that nutshell with your dad's story is the whole point really of what you've done
(07:30):
because so many people wait until they're retired. I think some people don't realize that you can do that
with very small amount of money. A very small amount of money, but the thing is we've probably been in a
similar situation before when we've bought something big, when you bought your first house or something
(07:50):
like that. You know that first year is a killer. Where does all this other money go to? All the money,
you didn't, I think because you didn't know existed. All of a sudden you've got a buy furniture
which was fine sitting on the carpet for the first week, but then you had to go and buy a washing machine,
and an oven, and all of this sort of garbage and you've got no money.
It happened a few times in your life and you remember when you really don't have any money for the first
(08:16):
year of sailing on this boat and I thought my budget after looking at that budget page for a year
was good, but I each month when I get my cash, I get it in cash and I had these all the
envelopes on the deck or on the navigation station where I'm sitting right now talking to you. And on each
envelope I put the money. So it was like, oh, this is going to be customs and immigration and
(08:39):
harbour fees in this envelope and this envelope here is going to be for boat maintenance and you put
all the money in each of the different envelopes in the label of the envelopes and the envelope on
the far right hand side, that was for any leftovers went into that envelope on the far right hand side
and that envelope was slim. Like you couldn't iron an envelope any slimmer than that envelope
(09:04):
and written on that envelope was one big word - food. Right. It's that tough, you know, people thought,
oh, I'm actually living the life. and I say to them, well, you give up your high-paying job,
lose all your friends because you're sailing away from them. It's not the bed of roses to begin with
especially at first. It's really tough, but you got to do it. You're a bit like the Crocodile Dundee of the ocean,
(09:31):
aren't you? You see hurdles and barriers and obstacles and you just barge your way through them like
you find a way, don't you? Yeah, look, I think that's really important because the world puts a
barrier in front of you or a hurdle, but you've got to get over the hurdle. Nothing good comes from
not getting over the hurdle. So if you imagine something simplistic like going to the supermarket to buy a
(09:54):
good healthy chunk of beef at a low price, so you're going to the supermarket. Now it's not there showing
you, oh, this is the piece of good beef that's on sale, you've got to find it, you've got to go through
every other piece of meat, you've got to go through the lamb, the pork, the chicken, the this, that,
now that you've got to jump all these hurdles and then you've got to find where the one is that's
(10:15):
on special and that's like jumping a little hurdle. Everything that happens on this boat is a hurdle.
So, you know, there is this saying, I stole this from somebody who says, "Everything you want is on the
other side of slaying dragons. I've got to do it. I've got to slay the dragons. I've got to get over
the hurdles. I've got to do it and I've got to expect the hurdle is going to be there because I tell
(10:39):
you what, every time I try and do something, you bump into another hurdle." Well, forget about dragons,
you've actually had an encounter with pirates as well, haven't you? That was really bizarre. So
in the Gulf of Aden when we went through was just when the Channels, this couple who are on a sailing,
(10:59):
boat had been abducted and were hostages. So, a group of us tried to go through, you know,
a flotilla of 26 boats in a grid because we thought, "Oh, you're being together with everybody,
everybody we're going to be safer. We were going down the Gulf of Aden and they wanted to drop into Aden,
the city in Yemen and I'm going, "Are you guys crazy? I mean, the Minister of something, had just been
(11:22):
assassinated the week before there. I'm going, "I'm not stopping there." So we left the flotilla,
we left the other 25 boats and went and did the last bits ourselves and what the pirates do is they
come between sunset and when it's dark. So they've got about 20 minutes to get to you where they can
attack you and then they've got darkness to be able to do whatever they want. In that moment, there was
(11:46):
this yelling on the two-way radio and it was a container ship and the container ship was coming up
behind us and the captain was panicking. You never heard a captain on a huge container ship panicking
and he was coming up on our port side and he was saying these pirates are on my port side. So
they were on the other side of the container ship. The line-up went, you know, from right to left,
(12:08):
was us then the container ship and then the pirate boat and I could see with my binoculars as the
as the ship came past us and he was going to flat out. Never seen a container ship going this fast. So he
was pedal to the metal, I'll tell you what, he went straight past us and right behind him and I
could see with the binoculars and then I didn't have to see with the binoculars because we were right
(12:30):
there. You see the huge back of the container ship and there's a tiny little boat with about six
or eight people with machine guns on it and they were all looking up at the back of the ship to work out
how to get on to the ship and because they were looking at the ship they weren't looking at me.
So I spun the wheel, turned around, hit the throttle, went in the opposite direction and while they
(12:56):
were still looking at the ship I disappeared into the darkness otherwise if they'd seen us we were
much easier target. So yeah, it was amazing. Were you with Marjorie at this point because you've
found love on your travels as well haven't you? Ah yes, yes so there's two parts of my life, there's
BM and AM so BM is Before Marjorie and now I'm in bliss, I'm in AM bliss. So I went into
(13:27):
Cherbourg in France which you'll know because it's where the D-Day beaches are and in
some parts of France not many people speak English so they had this group that met at the bar
once a week called the Cherbourg English Cafe and I met everybody who spoke English in town.
Then Marjorie and I were introduced by one of those people and we were at this
(13:52):
cafe and we got on pretty well together so that was amazing and I thought it was on that night
but Marjorie tells me it was a couple of weeks later. It may have been the next night but I said to her
"Look I'm on a boat, I'm sailing around the world, if you want to go out with me you're on the boat,
(14:14):
you quit your job, you get rid of your apartment, you sell your furniture, you bring a very small
suitcase and one teddy bear and you get on my boat." And that appealed? I think it took her a little while
she's sitting next to me laughing her head off so she said to me "I've got to live with her in her apartment for
(14:34):
six months" and I thought "oh yeah well that's no worries, I will spend the time on the boat" but
then COVID came and we were so we were locked down in her apartment for six months looking at each
other so we survived that so that was like being on a boat so then she came on the boat and we've been
going out together for five years. You're now married too. "Oh yeah we got married, we got
(14:58):
that, that was great, we got married in France." Now how has Marjorie adapted to life at sea because
obviously this wasn't necessarily her life goal so how is that working for the two of you?
Well the beginning part was rather interesting because I took her out for a couple of day sails
and then we were going to do like a test but a but a long one in the English Channel and I was
(15:22):
going to sail over to England and I had 22 cases of French wine on the boat in the half cabin
because you can get wine in France is much cheaper than anywhere else in the world. So I had all these
22 boxes of wine and she was coming for the first couple of days and then she was going to come back home
(15:43):
so we got about three or four hours off the coast and the engine broke down so I told her to move the
22 cases of wine out of the half cabin so I could get into the engine and she was at this stage
thought she was going out with a lunatic broken down in the middle of the ocean with ships rolling
all around the place and the reefs coming up on her really fast. It was pretty intense
(16:07):
if anybody knows the Alderney Race we were in there which is a tidal race or the rocks we were very
close to that about a mile if I didn't fix the boat we would have been few barnacles off the
keel. So anyway we got the 22 cases of wine off the engine pulled the engine apart got working
so that was it and then went back to Cherbourg and the very next time that she came out on the boat
(16:33):
we did a passage from Cherbourg which was nonstop because we were still in COVID we had to escape from
Cherbourg in the north of France to the Caribbean direct that was the first time she was on the boat
for me anytime 37 days Goodness she obviously loves it though. She loves the sailing she doesn't love me
but we're about a week before we arrived in the Caribbean so we're already done 30 days at sea
(16:59):
I planned on about 24 days so we had good food for 24 days so we would you know a weekend a pretty crook
food you know if you like eating Spam we've got plenty of it still and a week before we got into the
Caribbean she said I'd like to stay out here for another week or two. Oh wonderful. Just amazing so
I thought well she's a keeper. So do you guys I mean how long do you plan to do it you've been doing
(17:24):
it well you've been doing it Mark for 17 years do you have now any other sort of life goals on the
horizon or is this just let's just keep going day by day and we'll just see where it takes us.
A really great question the boat and the life has evolved a little bit so when I first got the boat
the goal was go cruise around the world well I've done that I've sailed around the world
(17:49):
down the circumnavigation we are looking fairly soon for another boat a little bit bigger boat and
we're going to do another circumnavigation with this one together but what the change is is that
it's now not a sailing based life it's a tourism based life so the boat we can sail wherever
(18:09):
we want in the world so a couple years ago we were in London for instance I love being in
London in St. Catherine's dock for six months and then sail to the next place we went over to New York
and were in New York for three months you can't afford accommodation for six months in London and
you cannot afford accommodation for three months in New York so with the boat we've got two bedrooms
(18:33):
we've got two bathrooms and we've got a kitchen we've got a big freezer and so we can eat on the boat
we can go to the supermarket in London or supermarket in New York and eat well there so the thing is
changed slightly in that it's really a tourism back thing even though there's lots of sailing in it
so we're still into that for maybe at least the next five years because as I said we are looking for
(18:58):
another boat but after that we've been thinking things when we're in the north of the United States
a couple of months ago we went up to Vermont to see the autumn colors on the leaves change where they
go from green to all these different colors absolutely fantastic but love wildlife out there
and there's some remote wilderness areas that you can if you can buy a little bit of land there
(19:23):
and you can have the bears come in and you can have the deer come in and chipmunks and squirrels and
all of this sort of stuff and I thought well that would be that would be really nice but you could
also you know we're looking at some in France as well and Australia so if you're looking at the right
place and it's not agricultural land it's very important point here if it's non-agricultural land
(19:47):
because you know it's up a mountain or something it can be really quite cheap so the prices on it
can be really low so that might be a thing that we do sometime but also we we just spent three months in
a in a camping van in Vermont and we spent three months two years ago in Australia in a camping van
it's just a wonderful way to see stuff so whether it's on the boat or in a van or on a plot of land
(20:14):
or something it's all about what we want to do. So tell us where in the world are you guys at the moment
and where are you heading? so we've just had a couple of weeks sailing down from the north of the USA
the Cape Hatteras area in North Carolina was a state and we sailed straight down to St. Martin now our
last couple of months have been pretty busy okay doing a lot of tourism stuff but we also had the boat
(20:38):
in a boat yard doing boat maintenance on it for a couple of months it's been pretty hard work
and then when we got down here wanted to have a bit of a relax and now we've sailed down just a half
a day sail between St Martin and St Barts I'll tell you about St Barts and just a second but half
(21:00):
way in between there's a tiny little island it's totally uninhabited there's no buildings on it
no shops on it no bars on it the whole island is in a wedge-shaped thing a couple of hundred meters
on each side and inside the wedge there's a tiny little beach about a hundred meters long
(21:22):
where anchored closest into the beach there's five boats here actually just let me see because
one of the boats may have left we think there's going to be yet one boat's just going out so there's
four boats in here a whole island all to ourselves there's no trees on it there's like all these
different types of biodiversity grasses is unbelievable and all these flowers the snorkeling here is
(21:47):
fabulous and we're just having a week here total chill out we're not knowing any tourism we're not doing
anything apart from snorkeling and walking on the beach and then walking up this these four little
volcanic plugs on this little island we don't walk up to each and and that is all we're doing is
nothing You really are living the dream the billionaires dream A couple of miles in the other
(22:10):
direction where we're going to next after after we leave here is St Barts and you may have heard this
is also called St Bartholomew is the correct pronunciation and but it's correct name for
it's don't know about pronunciation now that's for all of the the world's billionaires go at Christmas
and New Year and they'll jump on their super yachts and go over there to St Barts to live up the
(22:34):
Christmas New Year's a whole great cluster of billionaires and it is really quite unbelievable there's
none there at the moment I've checked I've checked them out I can actually see electronically where all
these super yachts are but we've been here at Christmas a couple of times and it is amazing you can
go star spotting on any of the streets or any of the beaches there if you watch movies you'll see
(22:57):
the movie stars because all the rich billionaires want a movie star on their boat at Christmas and New Years
sort of gives them credibility so that is just a really weird joy and then we're going down through the
rest of the Caribbean islands will be in Grenada in about a month or so because it's the hurricane season
coming on here But you are living the billionaire lifestyle aren't you on a on a on a what a beer budget?
(23:21):
Yeah, and the funny thing about it in St Barts and when I say billionaires go the yacht crews
are not allowed off the boats during Christmas New Year because they've got all the guests on and they've
got to be all things so all the yacht crews are on the boats polishing and doing all that crap all the
billionaires are in town there's one bar called Le Select so before I tell you that Le Select and I tell
(23:46):
you all the restaurants and bars and some bars are really expensive to spend a thousand dollars for
dinner for two is not difficult at all we haven't we haven't obviously we eat on the boat but
there is one bar called Le Select which is affordable you know the beers are your normal four dollars or
or whatever and everybody goes to the one affordable bar in the whole town everybody packed in there
(24:11):
billionaires non billionaires actors non actors it's the funniest thing and then there's this beach
called Shell Beach and you go there for free it's not one of these ones covered with umbrellas it's
just a free beach going there sit out and every other billionaire is trying to get on this beach
it's that famous I've got to be there or got to be seen on Shell beach so it is the most amazing thing
(24:34):
that you are living the billionaire lifestyle on absolutely not a billionaires budget but this is
the thing about all around the world wherever you are in the world a city or an island or a sea
or a continent or whatever everything is so different and we can be exploring it forever and I
(24:57):
don't think there's a difficulty about about doing that So for the person who's listening who is
just so envious of you right now you and Marjorie just thinking I want this lifestyle what's your
advice for them? Facilitate your goals by using a job to make the money and don't waste the money
(25:20):
I'll tell you a story I came back to Australia, didn't have accommodation was staying with a friend
for a few days and she pulled out a hundred dollar note out of a wallet and said go after the
pub and get two bottles of wine and make sure it's nothing under forty dollars because any bottle of wine
under forty dollars is garbage I'd never bought a bottle of wine for forty dollars that was
(25:43):
1993 this is 2025 I have still not ever bought a bottle of wine
which is forty dollars you know now I've never spent more than ten bucks on a bottle of wine even
now thirty years later so if you're using money as a facilitated to make your goal unless you're
goal is to become a wine a wine expert don't waste money on garbage but if you've got your goal
(26:11):
I am going to sail around the world or I am going to buy my own farm or I'm going to do this
then it's easy for you to say and say why am I buying a forty bucks bottle of wine that's stopping me
from sailing around the world That's really good advice you know because I think so many of us
you know even just the magazines and all those things they add up do I need to buy magazines
(26:33):
if I want to be sailing the world? Exactly a lot of the magazines and stuff online that you can
download and all the forms and stuff like that you know the whole goal setting thing is about each of
us individually my dream in my life is going to be totally different from everybody else so it
doesn't need to be sailing everybody's different so when I'm saying you set your life goal you can
(26:59):
do that now sometimes people say well I don't have any I mean I'm just working I've got another
forty years' work to do I don't have it and I said well you're going to go get bored and then you
might be able to figure out something which is about you and they say what do you mean by go get bored
we need to watch tv and you don't read books you don't read the media or anything all of a sudden
your own mind starts ticking over. Belinda do you know what a writer's retreat is where they've got a
(27:24):
little hut or a room or something they rent out to writers or artists where you don't do anything
you're just there with your typewriter? I have a girlfriend who actually runs a writer's retreat
so I'm quite familiar with them. All right great well that would be a great place to be bored because if
you don't take a computer and you're not a writer just go book a writer's retreat it's just for
you just go to sit there for a week get really bored and then your mind will start thinking about
(27:48):
the pleasures of of life and the other thing is you might not know what your one is or you might
think I have always sort of thought I wanted to do this now as a boy of my age when we grew up
we had all of these books still about World War Two and I always wanted to fly flying one day I
(28:08):
thought well why don't we go fly a plane and so we're being serious and after whatever I was doing
that and I went down to Camden Airport to tiny little airport with no planes or anything
and they had a pilot school and I said I don't want to do the whole course because flying course
is really expensive I said all I want to do is I just take me up for two hours I want to be able to
(28:31):
fly the plane teach me how to get left and right teach me how to go up and down I don't care
about landing or taking off or anything those things are complicated but just I just want to go up and
fly and if I really like it then I'll book and do a course anyway I went up and I learned to fly
to actually learn to fly and I up down left right but you're not learning all of the technical stuff
(28:53):
and not learning all the administration or regulation but after that two hours I thought hey that's
fine that's cool but it's not a big enough thing for me to want to go spend thousands of dollars on
and I meant that's what you can do if you get an idea after seven days of boredom and you start
plucking ideas out of your head of what you could do we can go do a course we can go join the club
(29:14):
or you can go find a way of getting into it just a little taste test that to see if you're going to like it
I remember you sending me a photo of you in the plane and all those years ago
I was proud of that. Belinda I've got an affirmation that I say can I tell you what it is
I would love to hear your affirmation Mark. This affirmation changed my life everybody says oh
(29:37):
you know you're you're living the life of luxury and enjoyment and doing his accident
you want to do so I had to write this affirmation because sometimes I'm not enjoying I'm not enjoying
it so I'm not letting myself enjoy it all the time anybody knows anything about boats knows if
there's boat maintenance to do which is pretty horrible one of the problems is in the bathrooms
(30:01):
that it's not like a toilet in a house not like the the lavatory that you know
but the pipes really narrow and it clogs up yeah and so guess who the person is who has got to unplug it
that's it we're lucky we have two bathrooms put in that way it's always it being convenient time for
so anyway now they can you get into this because if I get into this you know I'm not enjoying
(30:26):
something so anyway I've listened to a Scott Adams thing and he said you know the right
affirmation about yourself what you want to change and say it every day out loud so here's my affirmation
today I Mark will enjoy myself I say that out loud every day today I
Mark will enjoy myself and I do I enjoy myself every single day and any day that I'm not enjoying
(30:51):
myself I think well it's not midnight yet do something to enjoy yourself go enjoy yourself do
something so even though I've got to do the boat maintenance I've got to unblock the lavatory pipes
I can still say right when that's finished I'm going to enjoy myself and I do every day now that's
a me thing this is totally an utterly selfish and people people don't realize you need to be
(31:16):
a bit selfish in your life you I'm not saying today Marjorie and I will enjoy ourselves I'm not saying
that I'm saying today I Mark will enjoy myself, she's got to enjoy herself as well everybody's got
you got you can't tell today the family will enjoy themselves no it's up to you to enjoy yourself
other people you know it's up to them to enjoy themselves and I've been saying that affirmation
(31:42):
of myself well well well absolutely setting the intention isn't it for the day like you you intend
yeah like you said after you've cleaned the toilet that at some point you will enjoy yourself
yeah absolutely straight after this interview I'm diving in the over the side of the boat
and going going snorkeling and the beautiful coral here with those coral fish it's
(32:02):
I'm going to enjoy myself and then the rest of the day is just relaxing I don't have to do anything
so it's good now but I added another affirmation so it's a different affirmation from that so today I'm
up on and done myself is my affirmation and then there's the second one that I say today I will not
do things I don't enjoy today I will not do things that I don't enjoy okay came you it on this one
(32:27):
yes I still got to clean out the bathroom I still got to do the dishes still got to maintain the boat
you know we've still got our life stuff but I'm not going to do things that I don't enjoy now that
means if something is going on so if somebody says come to the movie tonight it's really great movie
it's a horror movie we're all going all six of us well I'm not going to do it because I don't like
(32:52):
Frank and Tom and I don't like horror movies and and that so what often we do is we go okay well I go
along and watch the movie I'll be scared but I won't tell anybody and I'll try and have a big smile
on my face and I won't talk to Frank and Tom so now I say no I'm not going to go I'm not going to
enjoy that so I'm not going to go oh I love that so much I've only had to actually use it a
(33:18):
couple of times but I tell you what the other night when I use it it was bliss What a life Mark thank
you so much for chatting with me I absolutely have adored speaking with you it's just been wonderful
talking to you I mean it's been quite a while I will go and put on my fins and my mask and go
cuddle up to some fish on the bottom of the Caribbean sea Well you enjoy it well what an
(33:43):
inspiration I got to say when Mark set off in 2008 I don't think any of his friends not me that's
for sure thought that he would still be sailing the world in 2025 but it just goes to show
that you don't need to win the lottery to win at life so what is in your heart if you were to swap
(34:04):
your career goals for a life goal what would you choose maybe it's time to write your dream
life list just as Mark did and who knows after a while yours may also shift from being a wish list
to suddenly becoming a to-do list can you imagine what do you plan to do with the rest of your one
(34:24):
precious life thank you so much for listening to this episode if you enjoyed it please share it
with your friends give it five stars and follow the series so you don't miss an episode I'm
Belinda Lee this is Step Into Me helping you find the courage to be true to yourself
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