In this powerful episode, Dylan Marc Tayler Smiler, also known as Dyslo, shares his raw and honest journey from the streets to stability. After a turbulent childhood, years of addiction, gang life, and jail time, Dylan found his way through music, fatherhood, meditation, and entrepreneurship.
We dive into his experiences with the justice system, rebuilding family relationships, and the deep spiritual work that changed his mindset. Dylan opens up about relapse, recovery, and resilience, offering insight into the tools that helped him stay clean for five years and build a new life through his brand, Marc Tayler.
Whether you’re going through your own battles or supporting someone who is, this episode reminds us that change is always possible, and that vulnerability, honesty, and connection are the keys to transformation.
Dylan talks openly about:
His turbulent childhood and time in youth prison
How music became a tool for healing and expression
Relapsing after rehab and finding his way back
Living in a meditation centre and completing 10 silent retreats
The spiritual and emotional tools that keep him grounded
Launching his brand Marc Tayler and building a better future
His hopes to support youth and inspire others through podcasting and service
If you’ve ever faced darkness and wanted to turn your life around, this episode will leave you feeling seen, supported, and full of hope.
Watch, like, and subscribe for more real stories of resilience and transformation.
Contact Dylan:
➡️Dylan Marc Tayler Smiler Facebook
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This episode is sponsored by AI Workflows, Empowering Business Growth with Intelligent Automation and AI
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
So I was born in Auckland, my mum and my dad were both heroin
addict and alcoholic. Mum didn't know what to do with
me so she would send me away. This was the constant thing of
my life was being sent away and having to start again, getting
in trouble. People don't know how to deal
with me. Also addiction started to
manifest in my life with cigarettes and alcohol also like
(00:24):
glue. Any type of way that I could
just get out of my head Cause I've always had a attitude if
the police, if the world, if you're not a criminal, don't
respect you. And all of a sudden I'm
surrounded by police. I'm looking at class 8 to
supply. They've got my phone.
You know, I've got hundreds of deals in there.
It just wasn't looking good. You know, bags of
(00:45):
methamphetamine. And I just had a moment where I
was just like there was this voice that was guiding me.
If you don't change right now, all your dreams to be doing
music and everything you love has gone.
Yeah, you're going to get about 7 years.
I had a spiritual awakening. You know, if you give us a video
statement, convicting yourself will give you bail.
(01:05):
Police gave me bail and then thevoice just keep guiding me.
Now go see a drug counsellor, OK?
Like I'm going like finding a drug counsellor, talking to this
lady about my drug problem. You know, music's been a very
vital part of my mental health and therapy and allowing me to
share the deeper parts to myself.
Love yourself and your lovable. You're, you're beautiful and
(01:27):
you're not hard to love. Take care of yourself.
Welcome to the Champion Market Collector podcast.
What if I told you that everything you knew about
yourself is just programming from your past and you had the
power to rewrite it? Today's guest is someone who's
walked through the darkness, emerged with a mission to uplift
others. I'm introducing Dylan Mark
(01:49):
Taylor, smaller Dylan you also known as Die Slow One once you
are trapped in the grip of gangs, addictions and crime.
Telling you now, five years clean and a proud father, a hip
hop artist, and the founder of the clothing brand Mark Taylor.
(02:10):
Your journey spans broken beginnings, life on the streets,
recovering through meditation, and building a new life of
stability and purpose. Dylan, today you're going to
open up about your story and your generational cycles and the
power of stillness and how you're using creativity to
(02:30):
inspire healing. So get ready for a honest, raw
and powerful conversation about turning pain into purpose.
So Dylan, before we kick into some questions, I'd really like
to get some context around your your journey in life from
childhood. When we had the podcast
discovery called, you know, whatyou shared with me was really
(02:53):
and like it really touched me because there were some
similarities and and and I'm bringing lucky to share your
journey. Cool, Yes.
So I was born in Auckland and during that time my mom and my
dad were both heroin addicts andAlcoholics.
So they were, you know, struggling with their addictions
(03:17):
as I came into the world. And dad was, he was on the run
from the police, you know, at that time.
And he got arrested shortly after my birth.
Mum was doing her best, I believe she was clean while I
was in the belly for some time and then when I came out she
(03:37):
relapsed. But my first month was spent my
mother's mum, my nan, our girlies mother.
She came into the picture and it's one of the things multi
families do. They, you know, they come and
support the mum and the and the really early stages.
So my nan was there in the firstmonth will also and she really
(04:02):
helped mum and, you know, with an empty changing and and just
giving me a lot of love and it was really beautiful my first
month. And then my nan had to go back
to her life and mum was full time Kiera after that.
And, yeah, slowly she started tofall back into addiction, you
(04:23):
know, and around six months old,she was right back to her, you
know, daily use of heroin. And our house became a trap
house, which is another word forlike a drug house, you know,
that sells drugs. So my sister was also there,
(04:44):
have an older sister who's 10 years older than me.
So she was looking after me, youknow, while while the house was
going through all of this stuff,gang members, criminals coming
in the house. So my sister was about really my
mom, like looking after me in that way, caring for me.
And yeah, she went through a lotof different things in her life
(05:10):
and, and she, um, yeah, she has a lot of mental health issues.
And I believe that like, she took the brunt of the force.
Like I sort of got a lighter version of the dysfunction, but
my sister was really, yeah, she cared for me and she she worried
that that I would crawl around and walk on some dirty needles
(05:34):
and things like that. That was the thing she worried
about on a daily basis because that's what was the nature of
our house. And so for two years, this was
my life, a little baby. My sister was probably my best
friend and my mom and my mom wasout of it on drugs.
And and then, yeah, something happened and mum ended up in the
(06:00):
courts and was looking at gaol, you know, and she had a choice,
go to gaol or go to rehab. And she chose rehab, really just
to get out of gaol. But something happened while she
was getting clean and rehab, so she was away from me for 16
(06:21):
months. I had, my mum was away from me
and I was sent to other family members and everyone took turns
at looking after me. And yeah, so that was the first
time where I was disconnected like completely from all my
family, my dad in gaol, my mom and rehab.
And I'll sort of felt like I wasjust Chuck with strangers
(06:45):
basically, because I didn't knowwho these people are.
They called my family, but you know, I'm just a little baby.
I've got no connection with them.
And yes, I was a bit sort of chucked here and there and had
to get used to different energies as a young kid.
And then mum came out when I wasfour and she was clean.
(07:06):
You know, my mum is now 38 yearsclean, never went back after
that. So she sorted her life out and
really reliable and just just a total opposite, you know?
Yeah, she's the most reliable person in my life.
My mom, like such. Yeah, I can depend on her.
(07:28):
What she says is the word, you know, which is really beautiful.
And yeah, so I was four years old, Mum came back into my life
and this is when the results of that dysfunction and early
childhood started to surface. And my behaviour was, you know,
(07:48):
I would hurt animals and trap them and, and it gave me a sense
of part being powerful. And I think that when I look
back, it's like I was so over adult sort of throwing me around
and and me having no control over my life where I would try
to, you know, anyway I could tryand control my life.
(08:12):
I would, you know, and, and animals was just one of the ways
that I would try and get control.
Yeah. And then, you know, by 5 years
old, I was already putting myself in dangerous situations
by, you know, mom would drop me off to school at primary and
then I would wait till my mum had gone and then I would walk
(08:34):
home by myself. And it would be to play video
games. So this was the first sign of
addiction really. I would rather play my video
games at home and, you know, nothave anyone tell me what to do.
And I was just, you know, walking home long distances to
break into my own house when I'mjust five years old, you know,
(08:55):
And Mum was really shocked causethe school rang her up and were
like, where's your son? She hasn't been at school for
five days and all she knows is that she's dropped me off every
morning and what, like, what's happened?
Like what's been going on? He's been walking home like,
whoa, like Mum didn't know what to do with me, so she would send
(09:18):
me away. So this was the constant thing
of my life was being sent away and having to start again.
I went to two primaries, 2 intermediates, 2 colleges all
because of this getting in trouble.
People don't know how to deal with me.
So they just like send them to dad now, send them to mum, send
them to dad, send them to his uncles.
(09:41):
And I was over it, you know, by the time I was 11, started
running away from home and living on the streets, you know?
And I really loved that. You know, I love to be around
other people like me, you know, other street kids who've was
sick of their life as well, so they wanted to create their own
(10:03):
life. So I'm out on the streets and
I'm, you know, you get hungry and then you're, you know, it's
becomes a survival thing. Like, how am I gonna get a feed?
And so crime came into the picture.
How can I get some food? How can I steal some food?
Also addiction started to manifest in my life with
cigarettes and alcohol. Also like glue.
(10:27):
Any type of way that I could just get out of my head, you
know, I would, I would get wasted just so I don't feel how
I feel, which was self hatred. At the end of the day.
I, I really hated my life and I hated the world and I, I felt
indifferent. And because of my early
childhood, you know, issues withanimals, I felt like a monster,
(10:49):
you know? You know, why would I wanna feel
that, you know? So it was just like I would just
get wasted every single day, just getting wasted.
It became my motivation and as you escalate into worse and
worse crimes, then youth gaol came into the picture.
(11:09):
So ended up in youth prison and locked up with other other kids
that were my age, you know, 1314, yes.
So I gave him my mum a lot of grey hairs during this this time
and and life. Like I've got kids now.
So I understand what it would belike to see your kids going
(11:32):
through such a hellish time and now they're in gaol and that,
you know, like, what can I do? As a parent, you're pretty
powerless, you know. So yeah, Mum was going through a
lot. Me, myself, I felt quite good in
gaol, you know? I loved it.
I was around people, they were like me.
I didn't feel so alone, you know?
(11:54):
We had you. Pardon community.
Yeah, it was a community, you know, and we had all these fun
activities to do and, you know, fights was always entertaining
like, you know, so and and little like I felt like because
I have about four years in gaol,the youth prisons were way more
(12:17):
volatile than adult prison. Wow, you know, way more fights,
way more drama, because we're all like, you know, we're
teenagers. You know your brains haven't
really formed properly, right? Yeah, until you're looking at
mid to late 20s and 30s. Yeah, yeah.
So there was riots and youth prisons set the whole place on
(12:38):
fire. Like there's all these memories
that I got of, of just being a young kid and being with all
these other young kids. And it was boredom.
Yeah, we were just bored. That's why the riots started,
you know, And then, yeah, so gangs began.
The picture joined in with gang a gang and we crime escalators
(13:00):
that is stealing cars and burglary and really just for the
rush, you know, just for the rush of their life, you know,
high speed chases with the corpse and just really a menace
to society. You know, was what I became and
that was pretty much my teenage years going as soon as I sort of
(13:23):
graduated from youth prison, I came out and then drug dealing
became my way of living. You know, my my way of
supporting myself. But there is actually a very
integral moment that happened inyouth prison.
I remember them bringing in the a recording studio and sitting
(13:44):
it up and all we got to write some rhymes, you know, and make
a song. And that was probably the seed
that that was planted in my headthat I'm actually good at
something, you know, that I can actually make.
Alright song, you know, And it gave me a sense of confidence, a
(14:04):
sense of like purpose, you know.So we made a song and I loved
it. I loved the whole process.
And then I got out of youth prison and I played that song to
my friends back in the hood and they were all buzzing out like 4
hours, so cool and all this likekeep going, you know.
(14:25):
So I really did, I, I started writing a lot of songs, you
know, and it kicked me out of trouble.
Like when I was writing songs, Iwasn't doing crime, you know?
And the drugs sort of went well with the music.
It, it gave me a different perspective on life, you know,
And I didn't feel like a piece of shit when I was making music,
(14:46):
you know? Yeah, the music was became my
sort of first love, I could say my first real love.
That was always there for me, you know, because I didn't know
how to function in relationshipsor anything like that.
So this was really one relationship that is just like I
really love that part of my lifeand and it keeps me out of
(15:08):
trouble. It really did.
And it's helped me all through life to now.
You know, I've done 9 albums nowand wow, you know, music's been
a very vital part of my mental health and therapy and allowing
me to share the deeper part to myself.
And I love writing. I can.
(15:28):
I even love writing about other people's lives if they inspire
me, you know, yes. So that happened and then like,
I got out of gaol, joined the gangs and drug dealing became my
way of life and started selling,you know, just cannabis.
And then it grew to other Class A drugs and, and, you know,
(15:54):
created a business, basically became an entrepreneur and had
people working for me, had cameras set up and, you know,
around the place and secured it.And, and I just had a real, I
had a good grasp on, on this type of life and how to
particular workers, that particular business or, you
(16:14):
know, pretty selfish. At the end of the day, it was
about me, but I really had a concept of safety.
You know, if I partake my workers, if I partick the
customers, even then I'm likely to succeed in dealing for a lot
longer. That was my concept.
So I had a lot of rules and you know who like no phones and
(16:35):
stuff like this. And I just did things the old
fashioned way where you knock ona door and you go in, you know,
but eventually they'd all caughtup to me.
You know, when you're dealing drugs and everybody's starting
to use drugs and slowly, you know, morals and honesty starts
to go out the window and, and eventually your empire will just
(16:55):
crumble. And that's what happened, you
know, So I ended up, you know, started sensing a lot of
dishonesty within my team. And then I just said, Nah, I'm
cutting it right now. Boom.
And I started doing it myself for a year, and then
surveillance was on me for that whole time, I believe.
And the IT was, you know, I'm quite intuitive.
(17:18):
I've always been intuitive, ableto know when I'm being observed,
you know? Even if it's a hidden camera, I
can feel it, you know? Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The energy of it.
So I started to notice things that were quite funny, like just
people and shadows and cars. And I would tell my friends that
there's someone following us, you know, and then I just knew.
(17:41):
And it was sort of became a gameto me, you know, let me stay
ahead of these people and like played games with them and
pullover and let them go in front and then follow them.
And, you know, we all just pull up right next to them and like,
and they're covering their face like that, you know, like,
because that's the whole operation blown, you know?
But yeah, it was really silly. You know, I keep going even
(18:04):
though that was happening. And yeah, I woke up surrounded
by police one morning and I had a spiritual awakening, you know,
because I've always had a attitude if the police, if the
world, if you're not a criminal,I don't respect you, this type
of attitude. And all of a sudden I'm
(18:24):
surrounded by police. I'm looking at Class A to
supply. They've got my phone, you know,
I've got hundreds of deals in there.
It just wasn't looking good, youknow, bags of methamphetamine.
And I just had a moment where I was just like, if you don't
change right now, there's there's this voice that was
(18:45):
guiding me. Hmm.
If you don't change right now, all your dreams to be doing
music and if you think you love is gone, yeah, you're gonna get
about 7 years, you know and thatvoice just got him.
It was just like don't be an asshole, you know, don't be rude
to the police gave this was swinging you could do and then I
(19:08):
was like, OK, so I just started trying to be nice.
They were searching everything, finding all the drugs.
They found my SIM card. They it was just like looking
worse somewhere, somewhere. And I was just like the voice
said, admit you've got a drug problem.
So I was just like, to the cop, you know, you know, I've got a
serious drug problem, problem. I'm just dealing to supply my
(19:31):
own habit, you know, which was true.
At the end of the day, the moneyjust went on drugs and more
drugs and gambling and all the other vices I had, you know?
Um, yeah so I'm sitting there having this like awakening while
I'm getting raided and the voicejust keep guiding me, you know,
(19:55):
talk to the police about making a deal to get bail so you don't
get locked up in prison on remand for like 9 months facing
your charges. Tell them that you will your
admit your wrongdoing and you put it on video and so you can
convict yourself. All you want is bail.
So I did that and the police said yeah, sure.
(20:17):
You know, if you give us a videostatement convicting yourself,
we'll give you bail. And I was, so I did that.
You know, I said, you know, I'vebeen dealing.
I'm doing, you know, I've got a drug problem.
I can't tell you who I got it from because you know the danger
to me and the people that I love.
I can't do that. But I can take full ownership
(20:38):
that. If you pardon it, yeah.
So police gave me bail and then the voice just keep guiding me.
Now go see her drug counsellor, OK?
Like I'm going like finding a drug counsellor, like talking to
this lady about my drug problem,like I've never opened up about
any of this stuff ever in my whole entire life.
(21:00):
And now I'm just sitting with a counsellor cause you know, this
voice has been telling me do that.
So I'm talking to this councillor and she's like, OK,
so will you go to rehab? There's a spot you can go there
in a week, Will you do it? The boy said yeah, So I was just
like, Yep, I will. And then now I'm in the rehab,
(21:20):
you know, got clean and first time I'd ever been clean in my
life for two months, you know, actual clean.
Felt really beautiful. I felt confident again.
Hmm. Cause what I had noticed is
that, you know, I could write music while I was on Myth pretty
easily. Like it was, it went hand in
(21:41):
hand, you know, But toward the end, the myth wasn't doing
anything for me. I couldn't, I couldn't write
music. It was just like, I was just
like soulless, you know, I felt spiritless.
I couldn't. That's when that's when I knew
something was really up. Yeah.
I can't create music anymore. The myth isn't helping.
Nothing's happening like, so yeah, when I went to rehab, all
(22:07):
that started to to just pass away and I started to feel
inspired again to do music. And I actually asked the rehab,
can I remove my studio in here? You know, like, no, just like no
way. You know, it is absolutely no
way we're moving your studio in here.
And I was just like, ohh, well, good.
Still started writing. And then came another point,
(22:29):
like I'm about to graduate and they're they're saying, you
know, I've still got charges formethamphetamine.
I've got a, a peaceful. Yeah.
So there's this black cloud around me and lucky the workers
were very compassionate and could see ahead of time because
they said to me, what are you going to do now?
(22:50):
You're two months clean, you're doing well.
Are you going to go back to the hood?
Back to your gang? What are you gonna do?
You know what's gonna happen if you go back there?
You're gonna end up in trouble again.
So I was like, I really want to do music, you know, I really
wanna study music. And they helped me get a course.
(23:13):
They helped me join a course at Mains, which is in Auckland.
It's like a music school to learn how to record.
Yeah. So I had to fill out these forms
and they wanted to know if I hadall these previous experience
and qualifications. I had nothing.
So I basically like was just like, I'm so passionate.
(23:35):
I'll be there. I know, I, I know this programme
and that programme. I didn't know any of it, you
know, I was just lying basically.
But I must have been convincing because they let me get on the
course, you know, and so I joined that course, you know,
and then went home. I went home that day to
Wellington. I had a partner at the time and
(23:58):
I actually walked in and they were using methamphetamine an I
knew this was like, yeah, everything came back to me.
I just felt like I wasn't kid full, you know?
Why would you do this? I just got out of rehab.
I'm clean. Why would you just be on the
meth and our house like? And so I just turned my back and
walked out and actually jumped in the car with my friend.
(24:22):
And then I said, yo, let's go get high.
You know, I was just didn't knowwhat to do with that.
So I relapsed the day I got out of out of rehab.
But Despite that relapse, I still followed through with the
plan, flew to Auckland and started that course.
And so, yeah, I did that course.I got a lot of teachers wrote me
(24:47):
a lot of things for court as stuff like I had the rehab wrote
me letters, counsellors wrote meletters, school wrote me
letters, same how good I'm doingbecause I loved going to course.
It was doing something I love. I had studio time.
I had other people there, although I had a chip on my
(25:08):
shoulder and an attitude. Slowly overtime I started to
realise that these people are just like me.
They love music, they've got a dream to do music, you know, and
we've got this in common. So I started because at first I
couldn't make friends. I was too like gangster, you
know, too much attitude, too much anger on on Class A charges
(25:31):
is a black cloud around me. Like it was just hard to make
friends. But as soon as I started
realising that we all have the similar passion, similar love, I
could start connecting with people and letting my guard down
a bit, yeah. And started to make more
friends, started to be make moreprogress.
(25:53):
And yeah, started my attitude started to change, you know,
which was really big. And then it was like D-Day.
It was like, I've gotta go to court now and face the myth
charges, you know, So I'm flyingto Wellington.
I'm at court and you know, I'm assuming I'm going away.
(26:15):
You know, that's just my way of thinking is like, Nah, man, my
history's so bad. Like hundreds of convictions and
now it's myth. Like I'm gone.
Hmm. So I'm standing in court waiting
for the judge to just say, you know, I'll give you 5 years or
something like that. But I was so surprised, like the
(26:37):
judge was just like, Dylan, you've done all the stuff.
I've got all these letters from all these people saying how
you've been doing, you've been doing really well, and I'm just
proud of you. And then I was just like, whoa,
like, like I had this moment of just like, Oh my God, I'm not
going to get gaoled. I'm not going to get gaoled.
Like, you know, that's what I was saying in my head.
(26:57):
And then the judge was just like, I'm going to give you home
detention. And then I was just like, well,
okay, I'm not going to gaol like.
And then here's just like, I'm so proud of you.
Continue on the journey. It's very inspiring what you've
done. And, you know, and yeah, so I
(27:17):
didn't get gaol and they put me on a bracelet.
So now I'm studying at school with a bracelet on, and everyone
can see there. And, you know, it's just like,
yeah, yeah. And the drugs was was coming and
going. You know, I must say that I
wasn't cleaning that whole time at at school.
I did fall into the drugs at times and had to battle that and
(27:43):
I met, but I did meet the motherof my kids and, and at school as
well, you know. And I remember that was, yeah, I
remember, you know, I'm on the bracelet and I'm trying to say,
hey, you wanna come over for coffee?
Like I can't go anywhere cause I'm on the bracelet, but you can
come to mine. Like she's like ohh, Nah, she
you know, like Nah, you know, cause I've got, you know,
(28:06):
obviously trouble. So she's just like Nah.
But later on in the year, I think like I was in the studio a
lot making music and making album shoot probably saw that I
was quite active. Yeah, you know, quite
passionate. And slowly, I guess she just
started to get the idea maybe itmight be OK.
(28:26):
And, you know, and then by the end of the year, we were
together, you know, and yeah, wewent for a whole journey
together and had kids. And that's, yeah, that's another
beautiful part of that whole change.
And yeah, ending up at school. And still together.
No, no. No, we're not together, but we
have a awesome relationship of Co parenting.
(28:50):
Yeah, I've got the same, yeah, 11 years of it.
Ohh cool. Hmm, yeah, so it works for you.
Works perfectly. Yeah, yeah.
Nice. Yeah, wow.
What did Jenny and you know, like, you know, as a as a baby
and up to that 7 year old self of Una like that, those are the
(29:10):
most important years of buildingrelationships, right?
And for you, it wasn't, it wasn't consistent, it wasn't
love. It was your pass from family to
family, right? So, yeah.
And look, as I shared with you, I was that close to becoming a
street kid myself on the streetsof Wellington.
(29:32):
And but my journey took a different path.
Luckily I had a bliss that I hada friend who was at church and
said come to the youth camp, youknow.
So I started going that way. But for me, at 15, I tried to
cut myself, kill myself because I was told I was useless, had
never amount to anything. I'd never be a singer.
(29:54):
And I proved that to my to, you know, the person that said that
to me who later bowed their eyesout once they saw me sung.
And then I I shared with you that started a band back in
2004, I think it was. And we we went to Roma, took a
prison with Dave Dobbin into theconcert for the youth and
(30:17):
remaking prison. O yeah.
It's interesting how similar sort of things, but you know,
just that one moment that you your life takes a different
path. But then you chose to, you know,
you could you could hear that voice which was your higher self
talking to you and saying kidding you saying don't I
(30:40):
understand? Take this right.
Yeah. Yeah, and he followed that.
And so I really take my hat off to you and say well done for for
doing. That thank you.
So you spent 20 years in that cycle of gangs, addiction, gaol.
What really kept you stuck in that life and what helped you
(31:03):
really break free? Addiction was a huge part of
that. You know, I needed, I felt like
using drugs was like, I didn't like how I felt.
So I was basically just self medicating, you know, and I
needed drugs. The only time I felt good was
really when I was making music. So using methamphetamine and
(31:26):
making music became like hand inhand.
So that keep me going for a longtime, keep me stuck in that
life. And yeah, my belief system,
thinking that was all I was worth, that was all I could do
is just make music in my hood. Hmm.
You know, and ego, I guess I'm trying to be the most heart out
(31:50):
criminal. I thought that was a good goal,
you know, to have and my belief systems keep me stuck in that
life. Like for me, it was a slow
unravelling of little light bulbmoments.
Ohh. If I don't have a attitude, I
can make friends. If I can make friends, I can do
better at my studies. And, you know, I'm trying to
(32:13):
find the similarities that I have with other people instead
of looking at the differences. You're from that life.
I can't relate to you. I come from this life, you know,
But really, we all have similarities.
Yeah. No, we all just want the basic
things. We wanna be liked.
We wanna, you know, have a bowl of food.
We want some shelter. We all have that common thing.
(32:33):
And if we share the same dream, that's even better.
Like that's a huge way to have aconnection with someone.
Hmm. You know, And I started to
realise that my attitude was holding me back from advancing,
you know, so that was a huge thing and letting go of all the
armour that I had put on like since the young could to protect
(32:55):
myself, you know, to survive, you know, to have disarm on.
So that was a huge part of of change for me as learning that I
had, I can put that down now. Like, I don't need to try and
put fear into people so they don't miss with me and and I
don't need to come across as angry so they leave me alone or
(33:17):
act crazy, you know? Yeah.
Which is what I had to do in gaol.
Yeah. And it's what I had to do and
situations with gang members so that they wouldn't think that
they can just roll me over, you know?
And at that point where you had that spiritual lightening and
then you went to, you know, you went to rehab and, and Someone
(33:39):
Like You went into a more spiritual journey of your, of
your life living with meditationand, you know, sitting in
silence and, you know, can you take us through that journey?
Yeah. And the the change of your
mindset and your life. Yeah.
So you know, school meeting the mother of my kids, we had a
(34:04):
relationship. We had about a four year
relationship and drugs was coming into the picture along
that way. Because I had never addressed
the idea that I might have to stop using drugs completely.
It never even crossed my mind like so that created ripples in
our relationship over and over again.
(34:25):
And I ended up losing my whole family, you know, and she ended
up breaking up with me and, and we had two kids together.
And that was probably the hardest summer of my life, you
know, the actual time when I felt like suicide might be an
option. You know, I just felt like, what
have I got now that I've lost everything?
I've lost my kids, I've lost everything.
(34:45):
I'm pretty much on the street and I realised drugs was the
problem so I ended up at my dad's and dad's has always been
the place I go to to when I got nowhere to go.
Hmm. You know, it will be dead or
mums, but it's usually dead because he still uses drugs.
So I can use drugs and, you know, like, there's that
(35:07):
relationship. Mum's more like no drugs in my
house. Yeah.
You know, she's fully clean. Yeah, so I ended up at dad's and
I get a job, you know, and I start trying to change my life,
but I'm just so unhappy, you know, I'm working my job and
building pools for millionaires and and stuff and I just get
(35:28):
home and I just feel like, ohh, my life is just shit right now.
Like I'm gonna look back and say, say I built some pools like
that ain't cool. Like I didn't feel like I was
happy inside. So I was drinking and that's the
first time I really felt like analcoholic.
Like the strong obsession to drink everyday after work.
(35:49):
I just felt like I had to. I would even be borrowing money
off there. Like Dad, can you get me some
10% beers just so I could blackout?
I just was so miserable inside. So I started blacking out
everyday drinking and I eventually lost my job because
of this. And then it was like far out
(36:09):
what am I gonna do? I decided that voice came again.
I actually took a trip was the last time I used.
The last drug I used was a trip.I took a trip and I started
speaking, talking to myself. I was lying on my bed and
envisioning a life being clean and I was like I started talking
to myself ohh so you want to come get on the piss?
(36:32):
And I was like Nah bro I don't drink and I'm just talking to
myself. Ohh you smoke weed?
And I was like Nah I don't smokeweed ohh what do you do?
Ohh I meditate, I go to the gym and I'm just high out of my tree
having this conversation inside and it turns out that their
compensation became my life. I went to alcohol Alcoholics
(36:54):
Anonymous the next day, still half tripping.
Told them this is my first day in recovery and that triggered a
whole draining of change. So I did the steps in recovery,
the 12 steps, got a sponsor, started being an active member
of A. My life started changing for the
(37:15):
better. I got two years clean and I
decided to sit a meditation retreat.
And when I set attendee silent retreat, it was like so much was
revealed to me like, and I felt so grateful to to have that 10
(37:37):
days in silence and learn a new meditation called Vipassana,
which is insight meditation. And it's a, it's a meditation on
awareness, you know, sharpening our awareness.
And that helped me, that helped me.
I left and then I decided to give service.
How can I give back? So I I drove back to the
(37:59):
meditation centre and served thecourse.
And serving a course, I got evenmore out of it because I was
cooking for all the students in silence and it was just so
beautiful for my heart, you know, Cause that's the main
thing. My heart was just so like cold.
And this gave me a chance to be in a warm atmosphere, looking at
(38:23):
myself, looking at my suffering,looking at the patterns that
create the suffering. And it gave me a chance to
change that. And after I served that course,
I became a long term server, which means that you move in to
the meditation centre and you live there and you give a
certain amount of hours, 6 hoursa day of service.
(38:47):
You're meditating 3 hours a day and you sort of have this work
meditation balance and plush these 5 rules like no drinking,
no drugs, no sexual misconduct. You know no killing you know
even an Ant no killing anything yeah no noble speech.
(39:10):
So we don't talk about issues that may um offend people and
stuff like this. So it made me living in a weird
way where slowly overtime, my heart began to change.
And yeah, it was like, it's likethe first time in my life I was
actually happy. Hmm.
(39:30):
You know, but it took a lot of work to get there.
Had to go through all those years of recovery and then
slowly go into the course and then move in there and then
spend the year there. Like yeah, I set 10 silent
meditation courses while I was there and yeah, I would notice
(39:51):
new things each time. You know, mainly the the minds
judging how my mind had a default sit sitting or judging
people. I remember judging people by
what they ate, how much they puton their plate.
Like I just had, you know how they walked the, the look he
gave me. He's a Dick.
(40:12):
He's a Dick, he's a dork, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And then at the end of the course, they've got meta day.
We we can talk now. So after 10 days of silence, you
can finally talk. And these guys were the best
guys, man. Like I just felt so like, what
the hell. Like I'm just, my mind is just
(40:33):
wrong about a lot of things. And, you know, it has this
tendency to just judge and how do I change that?
You know, like, I don't want to.This guy's the best.
I got his number and we were like friends, you know?
And I learned a lot from that. I learned that, you know, my
mind isn't always right. It's quite often wrong.
(40:54):
And what else is wrong? You know what else is not
correct? Yeah, and true.
So I started looking into all the other issues and justice, my
reaction to things. And so, yeah, it gives me a
moment of pause now where I can sort of look, I can look before
(41:14):
I react and and change my responses or because of that
learning, you know. Yeah, because you're aware of
yourself and you know, you're not looking externally, you're
looking internally, right? You're and you've, you've had to
sit with yourself and observe yourself and your attitudes,
(41:37):
your behaviours, your thoughts and you you would have also had
to work through and I mean I, I work through this last year.
All my repressed feelings, emotions are self sit for for 12
weeks. I sat in my discomfort with
every emotion, every thought, every feeling.
(41:59):
Hmm. And becoming comfortable in my
discomfort. And as from Ecotales talks
about, you know, like the thoughts come and go, they just
let them pass. But you go into your body as
when you connect to your body, that's when that's when you
really get to know who you are, right?
(42:21):
You're, you're, we a lot of people think that your, your
mind, your brain is what what ittells you is what you are.
But yeah, but it's not. It's when you connect with your
body. Your body tells you who you are.
You know you have that feel and understanding of who you are.
And because Brian tends to delete the stort and generalise
(42:46):
information to be able to cause we've got millions of bits of
information passing through our brain, right?
But it can only handle about 40 bits, so it has to delete the
distort and generalise. And then based on that plus the
programming that we've been through up until this point,
(43:06):
that's what we're working on, right, Hold information.
Yeah, yeah. And we're trying to, it's trying
to fit the police that it has a so it's looking for confirmation
all the time, yeah, that we're right, that I am worthless or
that I am not, you know, liked or whatever bad, you know,
belief systems you have. It's just constantly looking.
(43:28):
And it will confirm it every time you ask.
It will go yes, yes. Because of this, yeah.
Fatherhood would have been a path wanker for your recovery.
How has becoming a dad changed your perspective of life On
life, responsibility and healing.
(43:48):
Yeah, fatherhood is just like such an epic journey, you know,
it's always changing cause our boys are always changing.
Teach you things as well, right?Yeah, definitely.
And like, I've had moments wheremy kids are like in early stages
of fatherhood, I definitely was reactive, you know, and yelling
(44:11):
at times and stuff like that. And when I would see my kids
like yelling the same way I do at them, like to each other, I
just really had like, like emotional moment knowing that
I'm affecting them in this way and they're actually becoming
me. Like that's my behaviour.
And now they're doing it to eachother.
(44:31):
Let's just like, wow, okay, I'vegotta really work, you know,
really got to work on myself and, and change the way I am
with my emotions and, and changethe reactive way I am in
difficult situations because they're watching and absorbing
everything that I do. And I better be the best version
of myself because, you know, I want them to love themselves.
(44:53):
And, you know, at the end of theday, that's what I think's going
to help in life. If they have a good sense of
themselves and they they actually like who they are and
they're gonna have a better life.
Because I know what's up. Hatred does.
I know what, that's what I went through, you know, not liking
myself and low self esteem. So yeah, I'm very, very mindful
(45:17):
of how I am as a parent and my reactions to my kids now.
And I'm always learning, you know, I'm always learning
because I just want to be the best dad I can be, you know?
Yeah, for these little guys, youknow?
Yeah. That's interesting how children
change us. I remember when my daughter
Olivia was before she was born, I was a that's totally different
(45:39):
person and maybe someone that we're exciting to me.
Wait till you have your daughter.
You will be, you will be a different person.
And Manny was was he right? Because it's completely changed
me again. I had to become the best version
of myself. Hmm.
So that I so that my daughter didn't have to go through all
the should have went through, right.
(46:01):
Yeah. How do you model your healing
and growth and parenting? How do I model it?
I guess accountability again. Like when I muck up, if I make a
mistake, I, I'll talk to my kidsand I'll say, you know, I'm so
sorry for raising my voice. And, you know, it's not you,
(46:25):
it's me. And yeah, just accountability
when we're wrong and complete honesty.
Yeah. You know, honesty is a big thing
in our house. Yeah.
Yeah, just which is difficult day some.
Days expect that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(46:47):
But that's one thing I'm trying to do is just be a calm parent,
you know, because people, kids will switch off, you know, if
you use yelling all the time, they just switch off anyway.
And they, they it's like the only, yeah, it's, it becomes
like the only way they will listen if you, you screaming all
the times that you know, it's like, that's what I went
(47:08):
through. I went through a screaming
phase, a angry phase, and yeah, I don't wanna go back there.
So it's like. Cause I feel the energy as well.
I feel like whatever you're going through, they can feel.
It Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, again, that
same I've, I had that angry heart and then very quickly I
(47:30):
had to change and not be angry anymore, you know?
Intolerance, right? It's what it feels like.
It's just like you're intolerant.
Yeah. And like that sucks to feel that
way. The the two women in my life, my
daughter and my girlfriend, havetaught me how to be more
patient, how to be more loving and caring and everything I do.
(47:53):
And it's all for me, it's been about raising the vibrational
energy to a place of love so that everything I do is comes
from a place of love. And when you do that, you know
you will attract the right people into your life.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because whatever you put,
energy you put out is going to come back to you.
(48:14):
And and so for me that was over the last two or three years,
it's been a journey of really raising my energy and not
leaking my container, my energy.You know what I'm talking about,
Like when you when you're leaking that energy and you're
getting into angry and this and that, it's kind of like the
(48:35):
container that you're holding for these people to be safe and
be valued and be loved. When you start leaking it,
there's there's not, there's, you know, it kind of breaks up
and then and then they go away from you.
So to create that container, youknow, it it takes a lot of
(48:55):
awareness yeah. And and doing things from love.
And so for me, it's been that journey of really, you know,
coming from a place of love every single time, but being
aware and being conscious of it as well.
Yeah, yeah, I was definitely creating toxic situations just
to be abandoned, you know, and not even knowing I'm doing that,
(49:18):
that was a huge part of like what I went through as well.
Cause abandonment has been a constant in my life.
And the belief system is that are, you know, I'm unlovable and
that every I'm hard to love and and that people will always
abandon me because that's what happened to me as a young kid,
you know, So later on in life, Inoticed that in relationships, I
(49:41):
would create these toxic situations.
So that woman would abandon me. Yeah.
And then and then I go, you abandon me and, you know, I'm
worthless and this type of thing.
So really healing or there has been like really important for.
Me totally hear you broke cause that's exactly, exactly what I
went through. I was creating situations where
(50:04):
where people were not feeling safe or that they felt like, you
know, I was enough because of myabandonment and rejection from
from childhood. I was just pushing people away
and like my current girlfriend has taught me so much about
cause I said judge people like Igo ohh, that person hasn't
(50:27):
messaged me. So then there must be interested
in someone else or blah blah or that.
And I would start creating all these stories in my head and I'm
like, it's really even true. And then when I, but then I
started to had to learn to come from a place of authenticity.
And when you come from a place of authenticity and you can
speak your truth because for a very long time I couldn't speak
(50:50):
my truth. OK, I don't want to say that
because I'm going to push them away, right?
And I'm sure that you went through something similar.
And but then what I learned was that But if you speak your truth
and say it, if the person is notmeant to be in your, they will
walk away. But at least you're being true
to yourself and you're speaking what's what's going through to
(51:13):
instead of holding it all in. Yeah, right.
Because that's just creating that.
You're just abandoning yourself.Yeah, Yeah.
So. Yeah, Christina, refreshing our
emotions, It always comes out the wrong way.
Yeah, yeah. And so I totally understand.
Exactly, you know, very similar.So you're now running your own
(51:35):
clothing brand, which is Mark Taylor, and creating music.
Tell us the story around your brand.
I believe that's your father's name.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, the name is my middle
name, and also my dad's. I'm named before he got adopted
out. So my dad was born Mark Taylor,
(51:58):
but he got adopted out and they changed his name to Phillip
Taylor. Hmm.
So I always thought like it's acknowledging him and, you know,
his mouldy mum that was, you know, pushed them to giving them
away. It was a weird time and history.
Where Modi appearance where being pushed to give the kids
(52:19):
away to Pacquiao. This was a part of New Zealand
history and my dad was in that era and yeah, got got his mum
got pushed to giving him away and yeah, they renamed him
Philip. But yeah, Mark Taylor always had
a ring as well. Mark Taylor.
I like that name like clothing label and yeah so the, the logo
(52:45):
as well as the MNT um, I've got 2 logos that's one of them and
they've got another one on my back, but.
There's one on the cap as well. Ohh yeah yeah.
So the three dots represent mind, body and soul.
Yeah, and they're in a triangle representing balance.
You know, cause we're trying to find balance between the mind,
(53:05):
the body and spirit. And yeah, if we go too far on
the physical side, then the riskis unbalanced, you know?
So yeah, I feel like I'm trying to find the flow between these
three aspects. And when I'm in that flow, I'm
sort of like manifesting in a good way, you know, and moving
(53:26):
forward. And I'm not getting out of
balance, you know? So balance is really what Mark
Tiller represents for me. And I've got positive messages
always, like be the changes on this one.
Stay grateful down here. It's just like whatever I'm
feeling at the time, you know, I'll just put that on the
clothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(53:47):
I've got something similar that I want to do from a champion
perspective. Ohh cool cool.
That's so you talk about balanceand also flow.
So people who are watching this and they might not understand
what having a balance between mind, body, spirit and living
and flow. Could you explain to to the
audience what what that means? Yeah, sure.
(54:08):
So what it means to you? Yeah.
So for me, I feel like if I got two out of balance spiritually,
I'm in a monk's into meditating 11 hours a day and my kids are
facing that I'm not there, you know, So I'm too spiritually got
a balance, you know, But if I'm at the gym all the time, working
(54:31):
on my gym and nothing else, thenI'm also neglecting other areas
of my life. Yeah.
So it's just like, can I find a good balance between each thing
and get an inflow so that, you know, I'm not too far one way.
Yeah. You know, and because, yeah, we
all, we are always constantly falling out of balance in little
(54:53):
ways. And I feel like finding a flow
is important, you know? And I feel like this is an
ongoing thing, and it will be for the rest of our lives.
Yeah. Getting this.
Yeah. This balance.
I kind of like envision that like if you take those three
dots and if you think of a strawand the three dots are like
(55:14):
holes in each of the straws, if they're not lined and balanced,
the water is going to flow out. But if they are aligned and
balanced, the water is going to flow through, right.
Yeah. So it's almost like the flow
between, like you said, it's going, it's going to be in all
areas of your life. You're gonna be balanced or or
(55:35):
in harmony, right? Yeah, yeah.
Gotta harmonise. Because there's a constant flow,
right? And it's a constant flow of
change. Like literally, we're going
through so many changes even in the space of 1 brief, let alone
a day. Yeah.
I mean, the moment we're shifting identities, we're
changing, yeah. Yeah.
(55:55):
So this is constant change. And you know, how our minds will
give way and our lungs will get weaker and our immune system
will eventually pass away. This is all happening, you know,
and we're slowly changing it in older, more grey hairs.
And so am I accepting the changes that are taking place or
(56:16):
my fighting them? You know, am I, you know,
resisting that and you know, dying my hair everyday because
you know, ohh you know, how manydifferent ways am I trying to
not accepting my change? Should be someone who you're
not, right? Yeah.
Rather than accepting who you are and accepting the situation
that you're in, accepting everything that's going on in
(56:38):
your life as it is. It is.
It is. It is what it is.
And but you know. We shouldn't be surprised,
right? You know, we wake up and got a
sore knee. Yeah, we're getting old like.
Yeah, well, decide that from thetime you were born, you start to
die. Yeah, right.
And so while we're on that journey to this, which is
(57:02):
inevitable, there's an opportunity to live a harmonious
life. Yeah.
Where we we live, like you said with flow, just let things flow
in your life rather than trying to fight it.
Yeah. And and that's, that's one of
the things for me as well, I've had to like for me with
(57:23):
abandoned rejection also came with lack and scarcity.
Alright, I live the life of I don't have enough.
I don't have enough money and all that sort of stuff, right.
But they came, part of that healing was also healing my
relationship with money and thatmoney is not a bad thing.
Money is actually good. It's a tool to help us.
(57:44):
And so I went through the spiritthe the spiritual journey and
awakening of writing a letter tomoney, and then writing another
letter to money and then lighting writing a third letter
to my first. Second one was from money to me
and then the third one was back from me.
Back to money. Burning the last first 2 letters
(58:05):
and then sewing that last data in a money tree which sits
outside my front door. And it's like I welcome money
now because I have a relationship and actually did
this meditation where I saw, I saw money knock at the door and
I opened the door and I was likethis human being, but it was
covered in money, right? And he said, can I come in?
(58:28):
I said sure. It came and sat down on the
couch next to me and and we started having a conversation.
I said well you're abandoned me.He says no, I didn't.
I've always been there for you, you've just not let me in.
And when I remember having this conversation with many and then
and then many walked away, but it was like it was such a
(58:50):
healing process of going in thatmeditative state and being able
to have a conversation with money and to be able to heal
that relationship. Hmm.
And you know, if we do that withevery area of our life and in
the year, we are moving towards a better version of ourselves
(59:12):
and we're letting things just evolve and flow in our lives
here. Hmm, so music how does how does
like with music today and the clothing?
What are your? What is your was the impact that
you're looking at creating through there?
Free music. I'd just like to, yeah, impact
(59:36):
people's lives, let them know they're not alone and what they
go through. And I feel like sharing stories
about what I've been through andbeing vulnerable is like one of
the ways one of the differences I have, I'm able to really be
vulnerable, you know, on deep levels where I've even like made
(59:58):
songs input. You know, my behaviours as a
child in there and stuff like that, like the real deeper
issues. Because I feel like if we
repress those those those behaviours and never talk about
them and just try and bury them,they come out in other ways in
it can make us sick. Ohh.
So it's really important for me to sort of bridge that gap and,
(01:00:20):
and show people that you can actually be honest and
vulnerable and you're not a monster and, you know, we can't
change. And I put this in my music and
also political stuff too. If I don't agree with stuff, you
know, I get fired up and I want to write about that, you know,
and justice and things like that.
Yeah. Anything that fires me up, you
(01:00:42):
know, um and might be a relationship, you know, Mike
start feeling lovey dovey and just whatever, you know,
whatever's going on, I'm going to be writing about.
Hmm, you know, that's that's what I do.
I don't really imaginative, likefairytale stuff.
I don't really do that. It's more about real life for
(01:01:04):
me, yeah. Hmm.
And where do you want to take your brand?
Um, I wanted, I would just want to take it.
I just want to push it as far asI can really day by day.
I'm keep motivated because in the start you don't get much
support. You gotta be self motivated, you
know, you gotta, you gotta stay inspired yourself because you
(01:01:27):
won't get much support in the beginning.
So like, don't be disheartened if like you're doing a clothing
level and you're not getting much support because it's it's
gonna be like that. So you sort of have to have
yourself belief and and keep going.
I've gotta, I've got something coming up that I'm really proud
of. It's like working with the
suicidal youth called Youth and Transition, and we're gonna be
(01:01:51):
going there and making some T-shirts for the kids where they
can choose their affirmation. And hopefully that's going to
inspire one of them at least to maybe they read each other's
affirmations one day and just helps them through the day.
You know, like I feel like that's doing some good and
(01:02:12):
that's the sort of kids that youknow, it's what I went through.
You know, it was a really a tough teenager to deal with and
it's a similar thing. So I'm trying to do stuff like
that. I wanna take my studio, take
that into gaols and and do the same thing that that happened
for me when they brought the studio and you know, they
(01:02:33):
inspired and planted a seed in me.
They changed my whole life. You know, I would, I would love
to have that opportunity to do that for other kids, you know,
and be amazing and to be able tosupport my kids financially from
there. That would even be like the
icing on the cake. But I will do it for free
anyway. Like if I if I get the chance to
(01:02:55):
do it and I'm not getting paid, I'm still going to do it.
Yeah. So what support are you looking
for at the moment and support interms of your brain?
Yeah, I guess like opportunitieslike that to go on and do good.
I I recently, the most recent thing I did is my friend, her
(01:03:16):
girl has cancer, so she was a bit thing about her head and
stuff. So I was like, ohh, you want to
make a hit? And we just made a head on the
spot, you know, and she made a, she got this little cat and
she's got the same cat banana. So she put Cat Banana there and,
you know, and she wears his headaround and she were all happy
(01:03:36):
with her head and, you know, makes her feel good.
And just little things like this, you know, they really make
my day. Yeah.
You know, they really make life better.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And if people want to like people, people here this the
story and this, this podcast andand I would like to collaborate
(01:03:58):
with you, work with you, or evenget in contact with you.
How can they do that? Yes, So you can get a hold of me
on my Facebook page, the landmark Taylor smaller, or you
could get a hold of Maine on my Dicelo page, Dylo.
It's like my Rep page or my clothing page, Mark Taylor
clothing, all on Facebook. Ohh yeah, yeah, there's pretty
(01:04:23):
much the. Way put those links into the
shine lights of the podcast. Yeah, right.
So we've got the six questions now for you.
Been for a few questions, but these are the quick fire
Christians. So you can choose to answer
these and a single word or a short sentence.
The first question is what is your definition of success and
has that definition changed overtime?
(01:04:46):
Peace. Hmm, who's been your greatest
inspiration and why? Tupac just because he stay true
to himself and and always yeah, he was just so motivational, so
inspiring and and made beautifulmusic.
(01:05:08):
What's something that you agree agree with that people may
disagree, or you believe that other people others would
disagree with? We are 100% responsible for our
own actions and emotions and andsuffering.
At the end of the day, it's on us, you know, and mainly because
nothing's personal, you know, ifsomeone, if someone wants to
(01:05:33):
come through a bunch of hatred on me, it's not personal.
It would if I wasn't there, it would be the next man taking
that, you know, it's not becauseI'm me.
It's because they are suffering and they've got a lot of hatred
in their mind and they're going to throw it on you, you know,
It's not personal. Don't don't take it on board,
you know? So yeah, I don't know if they
(01:05:53):
are. Yeah, that does, absolutely.
If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of
advice, what would it be? Just love your selfie.
You know, you're lovable. You're, you're beautiful and
you're not hard to love and yeah, take care of yourself and
(01:06:15):
being nice to yourself, yeah. Really, What does one message
that you'd like to share with the world?
And yeah, just be kind. Try and be kind to yourself and
others, you know, Kindness is really love at the end of day
(01:06:36):
for me, you know, some people feel like love is this magical
thing. You fly away and everything's
good, you know? But for me, it's just being
kind, you know, kindness, manifesting this love, you know?
And what does it mean to you to be a champion and to have a
champion mindset? I guess being Brazilian
(01:07:00):
adaptable. Ohh, being with the change of
life, you know, And also just, yeah, being climbed to yourself,
you know? Yeah, being a champion.
Yeah, not comparing yourself to others, you know, as well.
(01:07:23):
I feel like there's a sort of stigma around that, that, you
know, for me to be a Yeah, just be yourself.
Like everybody's got something they can offer the world, you
know, try and find whatever thatis and been honed in on that,
Yeah. Awesome.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
(01:07:45):
So then your journey is proof that no matter how far you've
far gone, you feel whatever you've been through, that there
is always a path back to yourself, right?
And from the streets to silent retreat rooms, you're an
addiction. This, the story is just really
inspiring and I'm sure it's going to touch a lot of people.
(01:08:09):
And I just want to say, if you found this episode powerful and
it's touched you, encourage you to connect with Dylan and also
look at your journey and life and say, hey, no matter what
I've been through, what opportunity have I got to take
responsibility for my life rightnow?
(01:08:31):
And to be able to live a life that's full of joy and happiness
and love rather than hatred affecting other people.
I encourage you to take time to sit with yourself and justice.
Be with yourself and observe what you do and how you can
(01:08:52):
become the best version of yourself.
And lastly, I just want to say you are loved.
You are worthy. Champion your life, champion
your greatness and have an amazing day.
Much love.
So I was born in Auckland, my mum and my dad were both heroin
addict and alcoholic. Mum didn't know what to do with
me so she would send me away. This was the constant thing of
my life was being sent away and having to start again, getting
in trouble. People don't know how to deal
with me. Also addiction started to
manifest in my life with cigarettes and alcohol also like
(00:24):
glue. Any type of way that I could
just get out of my head Cause I've always had a attitude if
the police, if the world, if you're not a criminal, don't
respect you. And all of a sudden I'm
surrounded by police. I'm looking at class 8 to
supply. They've got my phone.
You know, I've got hundreds of deals in there.
It just wasn't looking good. You know, bags of
(00:45):
methamphetamine. And I just had a moment where I
was just like there was this voice that was guiding me.
If you don't change right now, all your dreams to be doing
music and everything you love has gone.
Yeah, you're going to get about 7 years.
I had a spiritual awakening. You know, if you give us a video
statement, convicting yourself will give you bail.
(01:05):
Police gave me bail and then thevoice just keep guiding me.
Now go see a drug counsellor, OK?
Like I'm going like finding a drug counsellor, talking to this
lady about my drug problem. You know, music's been a very
vital part of my mental health and therapy and allowing me to
share the deeper parts to myself.
Love yourself and your lovable. You're, you're beautiful and
(01:27):
you're not hard to love. Take care of yourself.
Welcome to the Champion Market Collector podcast.
What if I told you that everything you knew about
yourself is just programming from your past and you had the
power to rewrite it? Today's guest is someone who's
walked through the darkness, emerged with a mission to uplift
others. I'm introducing Dylan Mark
(01:49):
Taylor, smaller Dylan you also known as Die Slow One once you
are trapped in the grip of gangs, addictions and crime.
Telling you now, five years clean and a proud father, a hip
hop artist, and the founder of the clothing brand Mark Taylor.
(02:10):
Your journey spans broken beginnings, life on the streets,
recovering through meditation, and building a new life of
stability and purpose. Dylan, today you're going to
open up about your story and your generational cycles and the
power of stillness and how you're using creativity to
(02:30):
inspire healing. So get ready for a honest, raw
and powerful conversation about turning pain into purpose.
So Dylan, before we kick into some questions, I'd really like
to get some context around your your journey in life from
childhood. When we had the podcast
discovery called, you know, whatyou shared with me was really
(02:53):
and like it really touched me because there were some
similarities and and and I'm bringing lucky to share your
journey. Cool, Yes.
So I was born in Auckland and during that time my mom and my
dad were both heroin addicts andAlcoholics.
So they were, you know, struggling with their addictions
(03:17):
as I came into the world. And dad was, he was on the run
from the police, you know, at that time.
And he got arrested shortly after my birth.
Mum was doing her best, I believe she was clean while I
was in the belly for some time and then when I came out she
(03:37):
relapsed. But my first month was spent my
mother's mum, my nan, our girlies mother.
She came into the picture and it's one of the things multi
families do. They, you know, they come and
support the mum and the and the really early stages.
So my nan was there in the firstmonth will also and she really
(04:02):
helped mum and, you know, with an empty changing and and just
giving me a lot of love and it was really beautiful my first
month. And then my nan had to go back
to her life and mum was full time Kiera after that.
And, yeah, slowly she started tofall back into addiction, you
(04:23):
know, and around six months old,she was right back to her, you
know, daily use of heroin. And our house became a trap
house, which is another word forlike a drug house, you know,
that sells drugs. So my sister was also there,
(04:44):
have an older sister who's 10 years older than me.
So she was looking after me, youknow, while while the house was
going through all of this stuff,gang members, criminals coming
in the house. So my sister was about really my
mom, like looking after me in that way, caring for me.
And yeah, she went through a lotof different things in her life
(05:10):
and, and she, um, yeah, she has a lot of mental health issues.
And I believe that like, she took the brunt of the force.
Like I sort of got a lighter version of the dysfunction, but
my sister was really, yeah, she cared for me and she she worried
that that I would crawl around and walk on some dirty needles
(05:34):
and things like that. That was the thing she worried
about on a daily basis because that's what was the nature of
our house. And so for two years, this was
my life, a little baby. My sister was probably my best
friend and my mom and my mom wasout of it on drugs.
And and then, yeah, something happened and mum ended up in the
(06:00):
courts and was looking at gaol, you know, and she had a choice,
go to gaol or go to rehab. And she chose rehab, really just
to get out of gaol. But something happened while she
was getting clean and rehab, so she was away from me for 16
(06:21):
months. I had, my mum was away from me
and I was sent to other family members and everyone took turns
at looking after me. And yeah, so that was the first
time where I was disconnected like completely from all my
family, my dad in gaol, my mom and rehab.
And I'll sort of felt like I wasjust Chuck with strangers
(06:45):
basically, because I didn't knowwho these people are.
They called my family, but you know, I'm just a little baby.
I've got no connection with them.
And yes, I was a bit sort of chucked here and there and had
to get used to different energies as a young kid.
And then mum came out when I wasfour and she was clean.
(07:06):
You know, my mum is now 38 yearsclean, never went back after
that. So she sorted her life out and
really reliable and just just a total opposite, you know?
Yeah, she's the most reliable person in my life.
My mom, like such. Yeah, I can depend on her.
(07:28):
What she says is the word, you know, which is really beautiful.
And yeah, so I was four years old, Mum came back into my life
and this is when the results of that dysfunction and early
childhood started to surface. And my behaviour was, you know,
(07:48):
I would hurt animals and trap them and, and it gave me a sense
of part being powerful. And I think that when I look
back, it's like I was so over adult sort of throwing me around
and and me having no control over my life where I would try
to, you know, anyway I could tryand control my life.
(08:12):
I would, you know, and, and animals was just one of the ways
that I would try and get control.
Yeah. And then, you know, by 5 years
old, I was already putting myself in dangerous situations
by, you know, mom would drop me off to school at primary and
then I would wait till my mum had gone and then I would walk
(08:34):
home by myself. And it would be to play video
games. So this was the first sign of
addiction really. I would rather play my video
games at home and, you know, nothave anyone tell me what to do.
And I was just, you know, walking home long distances to
break into my own house when I'mjust five years old, you know,
(08:55):
And Mum was really shocked causethe school rang her up and were
like, where's your son? She hasn't been at school for
five days and all she knows is that she's dropped me off every
morning and what, like, what's happened?
Like what's been going on? He's been walking home like,
whoa, like Mum didn't know what to do with me, so she would send
(09:18):
me away. So this was the constant thing
of my life was being sent away and having to start again.
I went to two primaries, 2 intermediates, 2 colleges all
because of this getting in trouble.
People don't know how to deal with me.
So they just like send them to dad now, send them to mum, send
them to dad, send them to his uncles.
(09:41):
And I was over it, you know, by the time I was 11, started
running away from home and living on the streets, you know?
And I really loved that. You know, I love to be around
other people like me, you know, other street kids who've was
sick of their life as well, so they wanted to create their own
(10:03):
life. So I'm out on the streets and
I'm, you know, you get hungry and then you're, you know, it's
becomes a survival thing. Like, how am I gonna get a feed?
And so crime came into the picture.
How can I get some food? How can I steal some food?
Also addiction started to manifest in my life with
cigarettes and alcohol. Also like glue.
(10:27):
Any type of way that I could just get out of my head, you
know, I would, I would get wasted just so I don't feel how
I feel, which was self hatred. At the end of the day.
I, I really hated my life and I hated the world and I, I felt
indifferent. And because of my early
childhood, you know, issues withanimals, I felt like a monster,
(10:49):
you know? You know, why would I wanna feel
that, you know? So it was just like I would just
get wasted every single day, just getting wasted.
It became my motivation and as you escalate into worse and
worse crimes, then youth gaol came into the picture.
(11:09):
So ended up in youth prison and locked up with other other kids
that were my age, you know, 1314, yes.
So I gave him my mum a lot of grey hairs during this this time
and and life. Like I've got kids now.
So I understand what it would belike to see your kids going
(11:32):
through such a hellish time and now they're in gaol and that,
you know, like, what can I do? As a parent, you're pretty
powerless, you know. So yeah, Mum was going through a
lot. Me, myself, I felt quite good in
gaol, you know? I loved it.
I was around people, they were like me.
I didn't feel so alone, you know?
(11:54):
We had you. Pardon community.
Yeah, it was a community, you know, and we had all these fun
activities to do and, you know, fights was always entertaining
like, you know, so and and little like I felt like because
I have about four years in gaol,the youth prisons were way more
(12:17):
volatile than adult prison. Wow, you know, way more fights,
way more drama, because we're all like, you know, we're
teenagers. You know your brains haven't
really formed properly, right? Yeah, until you're looking at
mid to late 20s and 30s. Yeah, yeah.
So there was riots and youth prisons set the whole place on
(12:38):
fire. Like there's all these memories
that I got of, of just being a young kid and being with all
these other young kids. And it was boredom.
Yeah, we were just bored. That's why the riots started,
you know, And then, yeah, so gangs began.
The picture joined in with gang a gang and we crime escalators
(13:00):
that is stealing cars and burglary and really just for the
rush, you know, just for the rush of their life, you know,
high speed chases with the corpse and just really a menace
to society. You know, was what I became and
that was pretty much my teenage years going as soon as I sort of
(13:23):
graduated from youth prison, I came out and then drug dealing
became my way of living. You know, my my way of
supporting myself. But there is actually a very
integral moment that happened inyouth prison.
I remember them bringing in the a recording studio and sitting
(13:44):
it up and all we got to write some rhymes, you know, and make
a song. And that was probably the seed
that that was planted in my headthat I'm actually good at
something, you know, that I can actually make.
Alright song, you know, And it gave me a sense of confidence, a
(14:04):
sense of like purpose, you know.So we made a song and I loved
it. I loved the whole process.
And then I got out of youth prison and I played that song to
my friends back in the hood and they were all buzzing out like 4
hours, so cool and all this likekeep going, you know.
(14:25):
So I really did, I, I started writing a lot of songs, you
know, and it kicked me out of trouble.
Like when I was writing songs, Iwasn't doing crime, you know?
And the drugs sort of went well with the music.
It, it gave me a different perspective on life, you know,
And I didn't feel like a piece of shit when I was making music,
(14:46):
you know? Yeah, the music was became my
sort of first love, I could say my first real love.
That was always there for me, you know, because I didn't know
how to function in relationshipsor anything like that.
So this was really one relationship that is just like I
really love that part of my lifeand and it keeps me out of
(15:08):
trouble. It really did.
And it's helped me all through life to now.
You know, I've done 9 albums nowand wow, you know, music's been
a very vital part of my mental health and therapy and allowing
me to share the deeper part to myself.
And I love writing. I can.
(15:28):
I even love writing about other people's lives if they inspire
me, you know, yes. So that happened and then like,
I got out of gaol, joined the gangs and drug dealing became my
way of life and started selling,you know, just cannabis.
And then it grew to other Class A drugs and, and, you know,
(15:54):
created a business, basically became an entrepreneur and had
people working for me, had cameras set up and, you know,
around the place and secured it.And, and I just had a real, I
had a good grasp on, on this type of life and how to
particular workers, that particular business or, you
(16:14):
know, pretty selfish. At the end of the day, it was
about me, but I really had a concept of safety.
You know, if I partake my workers, if I partick the
customers, even then I'm likely to succeed in dealing for a lot
longer. That was my concept.
So I had a lot of rules and you know who like no phones and
(16:35):
stuff like this. And I just did things the old
fashioned way where you knock ona door and you go in, you know,
but eventually they'd all caughtup to me.
You know, when you're dealing drugs and everybody's starting
to use drugs and slowly, you know, morals and honesty starts
to go out the window and, and eventually your empire will just
(16:55):
crumble. And that's what happened, you
know, So I ended up, you know, started sensing a lot of
dishonesty within my team. And then I just said, Nah, I'm
cutting it right now. Boom.
And I started doing it myself for a year, and then
surveillance was on me for that whole time, I believe.
And the IT was, you know, I'm quite intuitive.
(17:18):
I've always been intuitive, ableto know when I'm being observed,
you know? Even if it's a hidden camera, I
can feel it, you know? Hmm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The energy of it.
So I started to notice things that were quite funny, like just
people and shadows and cars. And I would tell my friends that
there's someone following us, you know, and then I just knew.
(17:41):
And it was sort of became a gameto me, you know, let me stay
ahead of these people and like played games with them and
pullover and let them go in front and then follow them.
And, you know, we all just pull up right next to them and like,
and they're covering their face like that, you know, like,
because that's the whole operation blown, you know?
But yeah, it was really silly. You know, I keep going even
(18:04):
though that was happening. And yeah, I woke up surrounded
by police one morning and I had a spiritual awakening, you know,
because I've always had a attitude if the police, if the
world, if you're not a criminal,I don't respect you, this type
of attitude. And all of a sudden I'm
(18:24):
surrounded by police. I'm looking at Class A to
supply. They've got my phone, you know,
I've got hundreds of deals in there.
It just wasn't looking good, youknow, bags of methamphetamine.
And I just had a moment where I was just like, if you don't
change right now, there's there's this voice that was
(18:45):
guiding me. Hmm.
If you don't change right now, all your dreams to be doing
music and if you think you love is gone, yeah, you're gonna get
about 7 years, you know and thatvoice just got him.
It was just like don't be an asshole, you know, don't be rude
to the police gave this was swinging you could do and then I
(19:08):
was like, OK, so I just started trying to be nice.
They were searching everything, finding all the drugs.
They found my SIM card. They it was just like looking
worse somewhere, somewhere. And I was just like the voice
said, admit you've got a drug problem.
So I was just like, to the cop, you know, you know, I've got a
serious drug problem, problem. I'm just dealing to supply my
(19:31):
own habit, you know, which was true.
At the end of the day, the moneyjust went on drugs and more
drugs and gambling and all the other vices I had, you know?
Um, yeah so I'm sitting there having this like awakening while
I'm getting raided and the voicejust keep guiding me, you know,
(19:55):
talk to the police about making a deal to get bail so you don't
get locked up in prison on remand for like 9 months facing
your charges. Tell them that you will your
admit your wrongdoing and you put it on video and so you can
convict yourself. All you want is bail.
So I did that and the police said yeah, sure.
(20:17):
You know, if you give us a videostatement convicting yourself,
we'll give you bail. And I was, so I did that.
You know, I said, you know, I'vebeen dealing.
I'm doing, you know, I've got a drug problem.
I can't tell you who I got it from because you know the danger
to me and the people that I love.
I can't do that. But I can take full ownership
(20:38):
that. If you pardon it, yeah.
So police gave me bail and then the voice just keep guiding me.
Now go see her drug counsellor, OK?
Like I'm going like finding a drug counsellor, like talking to
this lady about my drug problem,like I've never opened up about
any of this stuff ever in my whole entire life.
(21:00):
And now I'm just sitting with a counsellor cause you know, this
voice has been telling me do that.
So I'm talking to this councillor and she's like, OK,
so will you go to rehab? There's a spot you can go there
in a week, Will you do it? The boy said yeah, So I was just
like, Yep, I will. And then now I'm in the rehab,
(21:20):
you know, got clean and first time I'd ever been clean in my
life for two months, you know, actual clean.
Felt really beautiful. I felt confident again.
Hmm. Cause what I had noticed is
that, you know, I could write music while I was on Myth pretty
easily. Like it was, it went hand in
(21:41):
hand, you know, But toward the end, the myth wasn't doing
anything for me. I couldn't, I couldn't write
music. It was just like, I was just
like soulless, you know, I felt spiritless.
I couldn't. That's when that's when I knew
something was really up. Yeah.
I can't create music anymore. The myth isn't helping.
Nothing's happening like, so yeah, when I went to rehab, all
(22:07):
that started to to just pass away and I started to feel
inspired again to do music. And I actually asked the rehab,
can I remove my studio in here? You know, like, no, just like no
way. You know, it is absolutely no
way we're moving your studio in here.
And I was just like, ohh, well, good.
Still started writing. And then came another point,
(22:29):
like I'm about to graduate and they're they're saying, you
know, I've still got charges formethamphetamine.
I've got a, a peaceful. Yeah.
So there's this black cloud around me and lucky the workers
were very compassionate and could see ahead of time because
they said to me, what are you going to do now?
(22:50):
You're two months clean, you're doing well.
Are you going to go back to the hood?
Back to your gang? What are you gonna do?
You know what's gonna happen if you go back there?
You're gonna end up in trouble again.
So I was like, I really want to do music, you know, I really
wanna study music. And they helped me get a course.
(23:13):
They helped me join a course at Mains, which is in Auckland.
It's like a music school to learn how to record.
Yeah. So I had to fill out these forms
and they wanted to know if I hadall these previous experience
and qualifications. I had nothing.
So I basically like was just like, I'm so passionate.
(23:35):
I'll be there. I know, I, I know this programme
and that programme. I didn't know any of it, you
know, I was just lying basically.
But I must have been convincing because they let me get on the
course, you know, and so I joined that course, you know,
and then went home. I went home that day to
Wellington. I had a partner at the time and
(23:58):
I actually walked in and they were using methamphetamine an I
knew this was like, yeah, everything came back to me.
I just felt like I wasn't kid full, you know?
Why would you do this? I just got out of rehab.
I'm clean. Why would you just be on the
meth and our house like? And so I just turned my back and
walked out and actually jumped in the car with my friend.
(24:22):
And then I said, yo, let's go get high.
You know, I was just didn't knowwhat to do with that.
So I relapsed the day I got out of out of rehab.
But Despite that relapse, I still followed through with the
plan, flew to Auckland and started that course.
And so, yeah, I did that course.I got a lot of teachers wrote me
(24:47):
a lot of things for court as stuff like I had the rehab wrote
me letters, counsellors wrote meletters, school wrote me
letters, same how good I'm doingbecause I loved going to course.
It was doing something I love. I had studio time.
I had other people there, although I had a chip on my
(25:08):
shoulder and an attitude. Slowly overtime I started to
realise that these people are just like me.
They love music, they've got a dream to do music, you know, and
we've got this in common. So I started because at first I
couldn't make friends. I was too like gangster, you
know, too much attitude, too much anger on on Class A charges
(25:31):
is a black cloud around me. Like it was just hard to make
friends. But as soon as I started
realising that we all have the similar passion, similar love, I
could start connecting with people and letting my guard down
a bit, yeah. And started to make more
friends, started to be make moreprogress.
(25:53):
And yeah, started my attitude started to change, you know,
which was really big. And then it was like D-Day.
It was like, I've gotta go to court now and face the myth
charges, you know, So I'm flyingto Wellington.
I'm at court and you know, I'm assuming I'm going away.
(26:15):
You know, that's just my way of thinking is like, Nah, man, my
history's so bad. Like hundreds of convictions and
now it's myth. Like I'm gone.
Hmm. So I'm standing in court waiting
for the judge to just say, you know, I'll give you 5 years or
something like that. But I was so surprised, like the
(26:37):
judge was just like, Dylan, you've done all the stuff.
I've got all these letters from all these people saying how
you've been doing, you've been doing really well, and I'm just
proud of you. And then I was just like, whoa,
like, like I had this moment of just like, Oh my God, I'm not
going to get gaoled. I'm not going to get gaoled.
Like, you know, that's what I was saying in my head.
(26:57):
And then the judge was just like, I'm going to give you home
detention. And then I was just like, well,
okay, I'm not going to gaol like.
And then here's just like, I'm so proud of you.
Continue on the journey. It's very inspiring what you've
done. And, you know, and yeah, so I
(27:17):
didn't get gaol and they put me on a bracelet.
So now I'm studying at school with a bracelet on, and everyone
can see there. And, you know, it's just like,
yeah, yeah. And the drugs was was coming and
going. You know, I must say that I
wasn't cleaning that whole time at at school.
I did fall into the drugs at times and had to battle that and
(27:43):
I met, but I did meet the motherof my kids and, and at school as
well, you know. And I remember that was, yeah, I
remember, you know, I'm on the bracelet and I'm trying to say,
hey, you wanna come over for coffee?
Like I can't go anywhere cause I'm on the bracelet, but you can
come to mine. Like she's like ohh, Nah, she
you know, like Nah, you know, cause I've got, you know,
(28:06):
obviously trouble. So she's just like Nah.
But later on in the year, I think like I was in the studio a
lot making music and making album shoot probably saw that I
was quite active. Yeah, you know, quite
passionate. And slowly, I guess she just
started to get the idea maybe itmight be OK.
(28:26):
And, you know, and then by the end of the year, we were
together, you know, and yeah, wewent for a whole journey
together and had kids. And that's, yeah, that's another
beautiful part of that whole change.
And yeah, ending up at school. And still together.
No, no. No, we're not together, but we
have a awesome relationship of Co parenting.
(28:50):
Yeah, I've got the same, yeah, 11 years of it.
Ohh cool. Hmm, yeah, so it works for you.
Works perfectly. Yeah, yeah.
Nice. Yeah, wow.
What did Jenny and you know, like, you know, as a as a baby
and up to that 7 year old self of Una like that, those are the
(29:10):
most important years of buildingrelationships, right?
And for you, it wasn't, it wasn't consistent, it wasn't
love. It was your pass from family to
family, right? So, yeah.
And look, as I shared with you, I was that close to becoming a
street kid myself on the streetsof Wellington.
(29:32):
And but my journey took a different path.
Luckily I had a bliss that I hada friend who was at church and
said come to the youth camp, youknow.
So I started going that way. But for me, at 15, I tried to
cut myself, kill myself because I was told I was useless, had
never amount to anything. I'd never be a singer.
(29:54):
And I proved that to my to, you know, the person that said that
to me who later bowed their eyesout once they saw me sung.
And then I I shared with you that started a band back in
2004, I think it was. And we we went to Roma, took a
prison with Dave Dobbin into theconcert for the youth and
(30:17):
remaking prison. O yeah.
It's interesting how similar sort of things, but you know,
just that one moment that you your life takes a different
path. But then you chose to, you know,
you could you could hear that voice which was your higher self
talking to you and saying kidding you saying don't I
(30:40):
understand? Take this right.
Yeah. Yeah, and he followed that.
And so I really take my hat off to you and say well done for for
doing. That thank you.
So you spent 20 years in that cycle of gangs, addiction, gaol.
What really kept you stuck in that life and what helped you
(31:03):
really break free? Addiction was a huge part of
that. You know, I needed, I felt like
using drugs was like, I didn't like how I felt.
So I was basically just self medicating, you know, and I
needed drugs. The only time I felt good was
really when I was making music. So using methamphetamine and
(31:26):
making music became like hand inhand.
So that keep me going for a longtime, keep me stuck in that
life. And yeah, my belief system,
thinking that was all I was worth, that was all I could do
is just make music in my hood. Hmm.
You know, and ego, I guess I'm trying to be the most heart out
(31:50):
criminal. I thought that was a good goal,
you know, to have and my belief systems keep me stuck in that
life. Like for me, it was a slow
unravelling of little light bulbmoments.
Ohh. If I don't have a attitude, I
can make friends. If I can make friends, I can do
better at my studies. And, you know, I'm trying to
(32:13):
find the similarities that I have with other people instead
of looking at the differences. You're from that life.
I can't relate to you. I come from this life, you know,
But really, we all have similarities.
Yeah. No, we all just want the basic
things. We wanna be liked.
We wanna, you know, have a bowl of food.
We want some shelter. We all have that common thing.
(32:33):
And if we share the same dream, that's even better.
Like that's a huge way to have aconnection with someone.
Hmm. You know, And I started to
realise that my attitude was holding me back from advancing,
you know, so that was a huge thing and letting go of all the
armour that I had put on like since the young could to protect
(32:55):
myself, you know, to survive, you know, to have disarm on.
So that was a huge part of of change for me as learning that I
had, I can put that down now. Like, I don't need to try and
put fear into people so they don't miss with me and and I
don't need to come across as angry so they leave me alone or
(33:17):
act crazy, you know? Yeah.
Which is what I had to do in gaol.
Yeah. And it's what I had to do and
situations with gang members so that they wouldn't think that
they can just roll me over, you know?
And at that point where you had that spiritual lightening and
then you went to, you know, you went to rehab and, and Someone
(33:39):
Like You went into a more spiritual journey of your, of
your life living with meditationand, you know, sitting in
silence and, you know, can you take us through that journey?
Yeah. And the the change of your
mindset and your life. Yeah.
So you know, school meeting the mother of my kids, we had a
(34:04):
relationship. We had about a four year
relationship and drugs was coming into the picture along
that way. Because I had never addressed
the idea that I might have to stop using drugs completely.
It never even crossed my mind like so that created ripples in
our relationship over and over again.
(34:25):
And I ended up losing my whole family, you know, and she ended
up breaking up with me and, and we had two kids together.
And that was probably the hardest summer of my life, you
know, the actual time when I felt like suicide might be an
option. You know, I just felt like, what
have I got now that I've lost everything?
I've lost my kids, I've lost everything.
(34:45):
I'm pretty much on the street and I realised drugs was the
problem so I ended up at my dad's and dad's has always been
the place I go to to when I got nowhere to go.
Hmm. You know, it will be dead or
mums, but it's usually dead because he still uses drugs.
So I can use drugs and, you know, like, there's that
(35:07):
relationship. Mum's more like no drugs in my
house. Yeah.
You know, she's fully clean. Yeah, so I ended up at dad's and
I get a job, you know, and I start trying to change my life,
but I'm just so unhappy, you know, I'm working my job and
building pools for millionaires and and stuff and I just get
(35:28):
home and I just feel like, ohh, my life is just shit right now.
Like I'm gonna look back and say, say I built some pools like
that ain't cool. Like I didn't feel like I was
happy inside. So I was drinking and that's the
first time I really felt like analcoholic.
Like the strong obsession to drink everyday after work.
(35:49):
I just felt like I had to. I would even be borrowing money
off there. Like Dad, can you get me some
10% beers just so I could blackout?
I just was so miserable inside. So I started blacking out
everyday drinking and I eventually lost my job because
of this. And then it was like far out
(36:09):
what am I gonna do? I decided that voice came again.
I actually took a trip was the last time I used.
The last drug I used was a trip.I took a trip and I started
speaking, talking to myself. I was lying on my bed and
envisioning a life being clean and I was like I started talking
to myself ohh so you want to come get on the piss?
(36:32):
And I was like Nah bro I don't drink and I'm just talking to
myself. Ohh you smoke weed?
And I was like Nah I don't smokeweed ohh what do you do?
Ohh I meditate, I go to the gym and I'm just high out of my tree
having this conversation inside and it turns out that their
compensation became my life. I went to alcohol Alcoholics
(36:54):
Anonymous the next day, still half tripping.
Told them this is my first day in recovery and that triggered a
whole draining of change. So I did the steps in recovery,
the 12 steps, got a sponsor, started being an active member
of A. My life started changing for the
(37:15):
better. I got two years clean and I
decided to sit a meditation retreat.
And when I set attendee silent retreat, it was like so much was
revealed to me like, and I felt so grateful to to have that 10
(37:37):
days in silence and learn a new meditation called Vipassana,
which is insight meditation. And it's a, it's a meditation on
awareness, you know, sharpening our awareness.
And that helped me, that helped me.
I left and then I decided to give service.
How can I give back? So I I drove back to the
(37:59):
meditation centre and served thecourse.
And serving a course, I got evenmore out of it because I was
cooking for all the students in silence and it was just so
beautiful for my heart, you know, Cause that's the main
thing. My heart was just so like cold.
And this gave me a chance to be in a warm atmosphere, looking at
(38:23):
myself, looking at my suffering,looking at the patterns that
create the suffering. And it gave me a chance to
change that. And after I served that course,
I became a long term server, which means that you move in to
the meditation centre and you live there and you give a
certain amount of hours, 6 hoursa day of service.
(38:47):
You're meditating 3 hours a day and you sort of have this work
meditation balance and plush these 5 rules like no drinking,
no drugs, no sexual misconduct. You know no killing you know
even an Ant no killing anything yeah no noble speech.
(39:10):
So we don't talk about issues that may um offend people and
stuff like this. So it made me living in a weird
way where slowly overtime, my heart began to change.
And yeah, it was like, it's likethe first time in my life I was
actually happy. Hmm.
(39:30):
You know, but it took a lot of work to get there.
Had to go through all those years of recovery and then
slowly go into the course and then move in there and then
spend the year there. Like yeah, I set 10 silent
meditation courses while I was there and yeah, I would notice
(39:51):
new things each time. You know, mainly the the minds
judging how my mind had a default sit sitting or judging
people. I remember judging people by
what they ate, how much they puton their plate.
Like I just had, you know how they walked the, the look he
gave me. He's a Dick.
(40:12):
He's a Dick, he's a dork, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And then at the end of the course, they've got meta day.
We we can talk now. So after 10 days of silence, you
can finally talk. And these guys were the best
guys, man. Like I just felt so like, what
the hell. Like I'm just, my mind is just
(40:33):
wrong about a lot of things. And, you know, it has this
tendency to just judge and how do I change that?
You know, like, I don't want to.This guy's the best.
I got his number and we were like friends, you know?
And I learned a lot from that. I learned that, you know, my
mind isn't always right. It's quite often wrong.
(40:54):
And what else is wrong? You know what else is not
correct? Yeah, and true.
So I started looking into all the other issues and justice, my
reaction to things. And so, yeah, it gives me a
moment of pause now where I can sort of look, I can look before
(41:14):
I react and and change my responses or because of that
learning, you know. Yeah, because you're aware of
yourself and you know, you're not looking externally, you're
looking internally, right? You're and you've, you've had to
sit with yourself and observe yourself and your attitudes,
(41:37):
your behaviours, your thoughts and you you would have also had
to work through and I mean I, I work through this last year.
All my repressed feelings, emotions are self sit for for 12
weeks. I sat in my discomfort with
every emotion, every thought, every feeling.
(41:59):
Hmm. And becoming comfortable in my
discomfort. And as from Ecotales talks
about, you know, like the thoughts come and go, they just
let them pass. But you go into your body as
when you connect to your body, that's when that's when you
really get to know who you are, right?
(42:21):
You're, you're, we a lot of people think that your, your
mind, your brain is what what ittells you is what you are.
But yeah, but it's not. It's when you connect with your
body. Your body tells you who you are.
You know you have that feel and understanding of who you are.
And because Brian tends to delete the stort and generalise
(42:46):
information to be able to cause we've got millions of bits of
information passing through our brain, right?
But it can only handle about 40 bits, so it has to delete the
distort and generalise. And then based on that plus the
programming that we've been through up until this point,
(43:06):
that's what we're working on, right, Hold information.
Yeah, yeah. And we're trying to, it's trying
to fit the police that it has a so it's looking for confirmation
all the time, yeah, that we're right, that I am worthless or
that I am not, you know, liked or whatever bad, you know,
belief systems you have. It's just constantly looking.
(43:28):
And it will confirm it every time you ask.
It will go yes, yes. Because of this, yeah.
Fatherhood would have been a path wanker for your recovery.
How has becoming a dad changed your perspective of life On
life, responsibility and healing.
(43:48):
Yeah, fatherhood is just like such an epic journey, you know,
it's always changing cause our boys are always changing.
Teach you things as well, right?Yeah, definitely.
And like, I've had moments wheremy kids are like in early stages
of fatherhood, I definitely was reactive, you know, and yelling
(44:11):
at times and stuff like that. And when I would see my kids
like yelling the same way I do at them, like to each other, I
just really had like, like emotional moment knowing that
I'm affecting them in this way and they're actually becoming
me. Like that's my behaviour.
And now they're doing it to eachother.
(44:31):
Let's just like, wow, okay, I'vegotta really work, you know,
really got to work on myself and, and change the way I am
with my emotions and, and changethe reactive way I am in
difficult situations because they're watching and absorbing
everything that I do. And I better be the best version
of myself because, you know, I want them to love themselves.
(44:53):
And, you know, at the end of theday, that's what I think's going
to help in life. If they have a good sense of
themselves and they they actually like who they are and
they're gonna have a better life.
Because I know what's up. Hatred does.
I know what, that's what I went through, you know, not liking
myself and low self esteem. So yeah, I'm very, very mindful
(45:17):
of how I am as a parent and my reactions to my kids now.
And I'm always learning, you know, I'm always learning
because I just want to be the best dad I can be, you know?
Yeah, for these little guys, youknow?
Yeah. That's interesting how children
change us. I remember when my daughter
Olivia was before she was born, I was a that's totally different
(45:39):
person and maybe someone that we're exciting to me.
Wait till you have your daughter.
You will be, you will be a different person.
And Manny was was he right? Because it's completely changed
me again. I had to become the best version
of myself. Hmm.
So that I so that my daughter didn't have to go through all
the should have went through, right.
(46:01):
Yeah. How do you model your healing
and growth and parenting? How do I model it?
I guess accountability again. Like when I muck up, if I make a
mistake, I, I'll talk to my kidsand I'll say, you know, I'm so
sorry for raising my voice. And, you know, it's not you,
(46:25):
it's me. And yeah, just accountability
when we're wrong and complete honesty.
Yeah. You know, honesty is a big thing
in our house. Yeah.
Yeah, just which is difficult day some.
Days expect that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(46:47):
But that's one thing I'm trying to do is just be a calm parent,
you know, because people, kids will switch off, you know, if
you use yelling all the time, they just switch off anyway.
And they, they it's like the only, yeah, it's, it becomes
like the only way they will listen if you, you screaming all
the times that you know, it's like, that's what I went
(47:08):
through. I went through a screaming
phase, a angry phase, and yeah, I don't wanna go back there.
So it's like. Cause I feel the energy as well.
I feel like whatever you're going through, they can feel.
It Yeah. Yeah, and, you know, again, that
same I've, I had that angry heart and then very quickly I
(47:30):
had to change and not be angry anymore, you know?
Intolerance, right? It's what it feels like.
It's just like you're intolerant.
Yeah. And like that sucks to feel that
way. The the two women in my life, my
daughter and my girlfriend, havetaught me how to be more
patient, how to be more loving and caring and everything I do.
(47:53):
And it's all for me, it's been about raising the vibrational
energy to a place of love so that everything I do is comes
from a place of love. And when you do that, you know
you will attract the right people into your life.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because whatever you put,
energy you put out is going to come back to you.
(48:14):
And and so for me that was over the last two or three years,
it's been a journey of really raising my energy and not
leaking my container, my energy.You know what I'm talking about,
Like when you when you're leaking that energy and you're
getting into angry and this and that, it's kind of like the
(48:35):
container that you're holding for these people to be safe and
be valued and be loved. When you start leaking it,
there's there's not, there's, you know, it kind of breaks up
and then and then they go away from you.
So to create that container, youknow, it it takes a lot of
(48:55):
awareness yeah. And and doing things from love.
And so for me, it's been that journey of really, you know,
coming from a place of love every single time, but being
aware and being conscious of it as well.
Yeah, yeah, I was definitely creating toxic situations just
to be abandoned, you know, and not even knowing I'm doing that,
(49:18):
that was a huge part of like what I went through as well.
Cause abandonment has been a constant in my life.
And the belief system is that are, you know, I'm unlovable and
that every I'm hard to love and and that people will always
abandon me because that's what happened to me as a young kid,
you know, So later on in life, Inoticed that in relationships, I
(49:41):
would create these toxic situations.
So that woman would abandon me. Yeah.
And then and then I go, you abandon me and, you know, I'm
worthless and this type of thing.
So really healing or there has been like really important for.
Me totally hear you broke cause that's exactly, exactly what I
went through. I was creating situations where
(50:04):
where people were not feeling safe or that they felt like, you
know, I was enough because of myabandonment and rejection from
from childhood. I was just pushing people away
and like my current girlfriend has taught me so much about
cause I said judge people like Igo ohh, that person hasn't
(50:27):
messaged me. So then there must be interested
in someone else or blah blah or that.
And I would start creating all these stories in my head and I'm
like, it's really even true. And then when I, but then I
started to had to learn to come from a place of authenticity.
And when you come from a place of authenticity and you can
speak your truth because for a very long time I couldn't speak
(50:50):
my truth. OK, I don't want to say that
because I'm going to push them away, right?
And I'm sure that you went through something similar.
And but then what I learned was that But if you speak your truth
and say it, if the person is notmeant to be in your, they will
walk away. But at least you're being true
to yourself and you're speaking what's what's going through to
(51:13):
instead of holding it all in. Yeah, right.
Because that's just creating that.
You're just abandoning yourself.Yeah, Yeah.
So. Yeah, Christina, refreshing our
emotions, It always comes out the wrong way.
Yeah, yeah. And so I totally understand.
Exactly, you know, very similar.So you're now running your own
(51:35):
clothing brand, which is Mark Taylor, and creating music.
Tell us the story around your brand.
I believe that's your father's name.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, the name is my middle
name, and also my dad's. I'm named before he got adopted
out. So my dad was born Mark Taylor,
(51:58):
but he got adopted out and they changed his name to Phillip
Taylor. Hmm.
So I always thought like it's acknowledging him and, you know,
his mouldy mum that was, you know, pushed them to giving them
away. It was a weird time and history.
Where Modi appearance where being pushed to give the kids
(52:19):
away to Pacquiao. This was a part of New Zealand
history and my dad was in that era and yeah, got got his mum
got pushed to giving him away and yeah, they renamed him
Philip. But yeah, Mark Taylor always had
a ring as well. Mark Taylor.
I like that name like clothing label and yeah so the, the logo
(52:45):
as well as the MNT um, I've got 2 logos that's one of them and
they've got another one on my back, but.
There's one on the cap as well. Ohh yeah yeah.
So the three dots represent mind, body and soul.
Yeah, and they're in a triangle representing balance.
You know, cause we're trying to find balance between the mind,
(53:05):
the body and spirit. And yeah, if we go too far on
the physical side, then the riskis unbalanced, you know?
So yeah, I feel like I'm trying to find the flow between these
three aspects. And when I'm in that flow, I'm
sort of like manifesting in a good way, you know, and moving
(53:26):
forward. And I'm not getting out of
balance, you know? So balance is really what Mark
Tiller represents for me. And I've got positive messages
always, like be the changes on this one.
Stay grateful down here. It's just like whatever I'm
feeling at the time, you know, I'll just put that on the
clothing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(53:47):
I've got something similar that I want to do from a champion
perspective. Ohh cool cool.
That's so you talk about balanceand also flow.
So people who are watching this and they might not understand
what having a balance between mind, body, spirit and living
and flow. Could you explain to to the
audience what what that means? Yeah, sure.
(54:08):
So what it means to you? Yeah.
So for me, I feel like if I got two out of balance spiritually,
I'm in a monk's into meditating 11 hours a day and my kids are
facing that I'm not there, you know, So I'm too spiritually got
a balance, you know, But if I'm at the gym all the time, working
(54:31):
on my gym and nothing else, thenI'm also neglecting other areas
of my life. Yeah.
So it's just like, can I find a good balance between each thing
and get an inflow so that, you know, I'm not too far one way.
Yeah. You know, and because, yeah, we
all, we are always constantly falling out of balance in little
(54:53):
ways. And I feel like finding a flow
is important, you know? And I feel like this is an
ongoing thing, and it will be for the rest of our lives.
Yeah. Getting this.
Yeah. This balance.
I kind of like envision that like if you take those three
dots and if you think of a strawand the three dots are like
(55:14):
holes in each of the straws, if they're not lined and balanced,
the water is going to flow out. But if they are aligned and
balanced, the water is going to flow through, right.
Yeah. So it's almost like the flow
between, like you said, it's going, it's going to be in all
areas of your life. You're gonna be balanced or or
(55:35):
in harmony, right? Yeah, yeah.
Gotta harmonise. Because there's a constant flow,
right? And it's a constant flow of
change. Like literally, we're going
through so many changes even in the space of 1 brief, let alone
a day. Yeah.
I mean, the moment we're shifting identities, we're
changing, yeah. Yeah.
(55:55):
So this is constant change. And you know, how our minds will
give way and our lungs will get weaker and our immune system
will eventually pass away. This is all happening, you know,
and we're slowly changing it in older, more grey hairs.
And so am I accepting the changes that are taking place or
(56:16):
my fighting them? You know, am I, you know,
resisting that and you know, dying my hair everyday because
you know, ohh you know, how manydifferent ways am I trying to
not accepting my change? Should be someone who you're
not, right? Yeah.
Rather than accepting who you are and accepting the situation
that you're in, accepting everything that's going on in
(56:38):
your life as it is. It is.
It is. It is what it is.
And but you know. We shouldn't be surprised,
right? You know, we wake up and got a
sore knee. Yeah, we're getting old like.
Yeah, well, decide that from thetime you were born, you start to
die. Yeah, right.
And so while we're on that journey to this, which is
(57:02):
inevitable, there's an opportunity to live a harmonious
life. Yeah.
Where we we live, like you said with flow, just let things flow
in your life rather than trying to fight it.
Yeah. And and that's, that's one of
the things for me as well, I've had to like for me with
(57:23):
abandoned rejection also came with lack and scarcity.
Alright, I live the life of I don't have enough.
I don't have enough money and all that sort of stuff, right.
But they came, part of that healing was also healing my
relationship with money and thatmoney is not a bad thing.
Money is actually good. It's a tool to help us.
(57:44):
And so I went through the spiritthe the spiritual journey and
awakening of writing a letter tomoney, and then writing another
letter to money and then lighting writing a third letter
to my first. Second one was from money to me
and then the third one was back from me.
Back to money. Burning the last first 2 letters
(58:05):
and then sewing that last data in a money tree which sits
outside my front door. And it's like I welcome money
now because I have a relationship and actually did
this meditation where I saw, I saw money knock at the door and
I opened the door and I was likethis human being, but it was
covered in money, right? And he said, can I come in?
(58:28):
I said sure. It came and sat down on the
couch next to me and and we started having a conversation.
I said well you're abandoned me.He says no, I didn't.
I've always been there for you, you've just not let me in.
And when I remember having this conversation with many and then
and then many walked away, but it was like it was such a
(58:50):
healing process of going in thatmeditative state and being able
to have a conversation with money and to be able to heal
that relationship. Hmm.
And you know, if we do that withevery area of our life and in
the year, we are moving towards a better version of ourselves
(59:12):
and we're letting things just evolve and flow in our lives
here. Hmm, so music how does how does
like with music today and the clothing?
What are your? What is your was the impact that
you're looking at creating through there?
Free music. I'd just like to, yeah, impact
(59:36):
people's lives, let them know they're not alone and what they
go through. And I feel like sharing stories
about what I've been through andbeing vulnerable is like one of
the ways one of the differences I have, I'm able to really be
vulnerable, you know, on deep levels where I've even like made
(59:58):
songs input. You know, my behaviours as a
child in there and stuff like that, like the real deeper
issues. Because I feel like if we
repress those those those behaviours and never talk about
them and just try and bury them,they come out in other ways in
it can make us sick. Ohh.
So it's really important for me to sort of bridge that gap and,
(01:00:20):
and show people that you can actually be honest and
vulnerable and you're not a monster and, you know, we can't
change. And I put this in my music and
also political stuff too. If I don't agree with stuff, you
know, I get fired up and I want to write about that, you know,
and justice and things like that.
Yeah. Anything that fires me up, you
(01:00:42):
know, um and might be a relationship, you know, Mike
start feeling lovey dovey and just whatever, you know,
whatever's going on, I'm going to be writing about.
Hmm, you know, that's that's what I do.
I don't really imaginative, likefairytale stuff.
I don't really do that. It's more about real life for
(01:01:04):
me, yeah. Hmm.
And where do you want to take your brand?
Um, I wanted, I would just want to take it.
I just want to push it as far asI can really day by day.
I'm keep motivated because in the start you don't get much
support. You gotta be self motivated, you
know, you gotta, you gotta stay inspired yourself because you
(01:01:27):
won't get much support in the beginning.
So like, don't be disheartened if like you're doing a clothing
level and you're not getting much support because it's it's
gonna be like that. So you sort of have to have
yourself belief and and keep going.
I've gotta, I've got something coming up that I'm really proud
of. It's like working with the
suicidal youth called Youth and Transition, and we're gonna be
(01:01:51):
going there and making some T-shirts for the kids where they
can choose their affirmation. And hopefully that's going to
inspire one of them at least to maybe they read each other's
affirmations one day and just helps them through the day.
You know, like I feel like that's doing some good and
(01:02:12):
that's the sort of kids that youknow, it's what I went through.
You know, it was a really a tough teenager to deal with and
it's a similar thing. So I'm trying to do stuff like
that. I wanna take my studio, take
that into gaols and and do the same thing that that happened
for me when they brought the studio and you know, they
(01:02:33):
inspired and planted a seed in me.
They changed my whole life. You know, I would, I would love
to have that opportunity to do that for other kids, you know,
and be amazing and to be able tosupport my kids financially from
there. That would even be like the
icing on the cake. But I will do it for free
anyway. Like if I if I get the chance to
(01:02:55):
do it and I'm not getting paid, I'm still going to do it.
Yeah. So what support are you looking
for at the moment and support interms of your brain?
Yeah, I guess like opportunitieslike that to go on and do good.
I I recently, the most recent thing I did is my friend, her
(01:03:16):
girl has cancer, so she was a bit thing about her head and
stuff. So I was like, ohh, you want to
make a hit? And we just made a head on the
spot, you know, and she made a, she got this little cat and
she's got the same cat banana. So she put Cat Banana there and,
you know, and she wears his headaround and she were all happy
(01:03:36):
with her head and, you know, makes her feel good.
And just little things like this, you know, they really make
my day. Yeah.
You know, they really make life better.
That's awesome. Yeah.
And if people want to like people, people here this the
story and this, this podcast andand I would like to collaborate
(01:03:58):
with you, work with you, or evenget in contact with you.
How can they do that? Yes, So you can get a hold of me
on my Facebook page, the landmark Taylor smaller, or you
could get a hold of Maine on my Dicelo page, Dylo.
It's like my Rep page or my clothing page, Mark Taylor
clothing, all on Facebook. Ohh yeah, yeah, there's pretty
(01:04:23):
much the. Way put those links into the
shine lights of the podcast. Yeah, right.
So we've got the six questions now for you.
Been for a few questions, but these are the quick fire
Christians. So you can choose to answer
these and a single word or a short sentence.
The first question is what is your definition of success and
has that definition changed overtime?
(01:04:46):
Peace. Hmm, who's been your greatest
inspiration and why? Tupac just because he stay true
to himself and and always yeah, he was just so motivational, so
inspiring and and made beautifulmusic.
(01:05:08):
What's something that you agree agree with that people may
disagree, or you believe that other people others would
disagree with? We are 100% responsible for our
own actions and emotions and andsuffering.
At the end of the day, it's on us, you know, and mainly because
nothing's personal, you know, ifsomeone, if someone wants to
(01:05:33):
come through a bunch of hatred on me, it's not personal.
It would if I wasn't there, it would be the next man taking
that, you know, it's not becauseI'm me.
It's because they are suffering and they've got a lot of hatred
in their mind and they're going to throw it on you, you know,
It's not personal. Don't don't take it on board,
you know? So yeah, I don't know if they
(01:05:53):
are. Yeah, that does, absolutely.
If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of
advice, what would it be? Just love your selfie.
You know, you're lovable. You're, you're beautiful and
you're not hard to love and yeah, take care of yourself and
(01:06:15):
being nice to yourself, yeah. Really, What does one message
that you'd like to share with the world?
And yeah, just be kind. Try and be kind to yourself and
others, you know, Kindness is really love at the end of day
(01:06:36):
for me, you know, some people feel like love is this magical
thing. You fly away and everything's
good, you know? But for me, it's just being
kind, you know, kindness, manifesting this love, you know?
And what does it mean to you to be a champion and to have a
champion mindset? I guess being Brazilian
(01:07:00):
adaptable. Ohh, being with the change of
life, you know, And also just, yeah, being climbed to yourself,
you know? Yeah, being a champion.
Yeah, not comparing yourself to others, you know, as well.
(01:07:23):
I feel like there's a sort of stigma around that, that, you
know, for me to be a Yeah, just be yourself.
Like everybody's got something they can offer the world, you
know, try and find whatever thatis and been honed in on that,
Yeah. Awesome.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
(01:07:45):
So then your journey is proof that no matter how far you've
far gone, you feel whatever you've been through, that there
is always a path back to yourself, right?
And from the streets to silent retreat rooms, you're an
addiction. This, the story is just really
inspiring and I'm sure it's going to touch a lot of people.
(01:08:09):
And I just want to say, if you found this episode powerful and
it's touched you, encourage you to connect with Dylan and also
look at your journey and life and say, hey, no matter what
I've been through, what opportunity have I got to take
responsibility for my life rightnow?
(01:08:31):
And to be able to live a life that's full of joy and happiness
and love rather than hatred affecting other people.
I encourage you to take time to sit with yourself and justice.
Be with yourself and observe what you do and how you can
(01:08:52):
become the best version of yourself.
And lastly, I just want to say you are loved.
You are worthy. Champion your life, champion
your greatness and have an amazing day.
Much love.
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