Turning the Tables on Burnout - Marco Benitez

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

https://www.coachmarcob.com/

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

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

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

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Episode Transcript

Raul Lopez (00:04):
This is Raul Lopez and you're listening to how Do
you Save Success in Spanglish.
The path to success isn't easyFor minorities and people of
color.
Many attempt this journey withlittle to no guidance.
Join me as I sit down withindividuals who share their
stories of perseverance so thattogether, we can learn how to
say success in Spanglish what'sgood, mi gente, it's your boy,

(00:35):
raul.
Welcome back.
Thanks for joining me here onhow Do you Say Success in
Spanglish.
Today on the show I have a veryspecial guest, marco Benitez,
burnout and authenticity coach.
How's it going, marco?
Very good man.
Thank you, Glad to be here.
Yeah, same thing.
I really appreciate you takingthe time to come on the show

(00:56):
Just to kind of give a littleintro on Marco.
Marco is a transformationalburnout coach who has dedicated
his life to helping healthcareprofessionals find balance and
fulfillment in their lives andcareers, whether they're
currently experiencing burnoutor are nearing it.
Having walked the path ofburnout as a physician assistant
, marco deeply understands theunique pressures you face in
your role.
His mission is to empowerpeople to embrace their true
selves, unlocking their uniquetalents and harness their innate

(01:17):
passions and strengths tocreate a life and career that
brings joy, fulfillment and thatinspires others.
Marco, welcome to the show.

Marco Benitez (01:26):
Thank you Glad to be here.

Raul Lopez (01:28):
Oh, thank you.
I really appreciate that youtook the time out today to get
on here and so I guess, to kindof start off.
You know, tell me a little bitabout yourself.
Who is Marco Benitez?

Marco Benitez (01:37):
Oh, you covered so much of it in the intro.

Raul Lopez (01:40):
Oh, there we go, it's over.
Thank you for coming on.

Marco Benitez (01:44):
Don't forget, tip your waitress.
Yeah, there we go.
You know I'm born and raised inNew York.
I consider myself a native NewYorker, just the guy trying to
figure it out as he goes along.
My passion has always been inmedicine and somewhere along the
beginnings of my path inmedicine I felt a deeper calling
and that transitioned me littleby little into coaching.

Raul Lopez (02:06):
Nice, nice.
And so, yeah, I mean soobviously you do a lot of stuff
with coaching now and you didphysician assistant.
It's a long journey from whereyou you've came and to getting
to becoming a physicianassistant and I want to make
sure I don't say physicians,assistants, nobody gets mad at
me physician assistant and thenultimately into coaches.
So tell me, you know you comefrom New York.

(02:28):
What was it like growing up inNew York for you?

Marco Benitez (02:31):
It was good.
You know I consider myself achild of the 90s.
I was born in the late 70s mytime when I was in my teens.
You know my teen years was inthe 90s.
So depending on who you talk to, they'll tell you that music
peaked in the 90s.
I'm one of those people thatbelieves that.

Raul Lopez (02:45):
Yeah, no, I agree too.

Marco Benitez (02:47):
So yeah, 90s hip hop, 90s R&B it's unlike
anything you know, and so thatdefined a lot of my growing up.
You know, we got out there, meand the fellows from the block,
and we just explored all partsof New York, mostly Queens,
because that's where I was bornand raised.

Raul Lopez (03:02):
Okay, nice, nice, and so ultimately, you decided
to become a physician assistant.
Is that something you alwayswanted to be?
Did you always know medicinewas something you were
interested in early on, or didthat something that come in
later on?

Marco Benitez (03:15):
I always like facts, science, things like that
.
I remember in grade school myclassmates were taking out books
like Nancy Drew and the HardyBoys and I was taking out books
on volcanoes and dinosaurs andspace, so I always knew that
science was something thatreally resonated with me.
Medicine didn't come up untilmuch later.
After high school, I decided toexplore the career in

(03:41):
pre-hospital care, emergencymedicine, as an EMT.
So I got certified as an EMT.
I actually worked for the FDNY,so I was responding to 911
calls in New York city.
I was yeah, I was pulling outpeople from car wrecks and all
the bad stuff you would imaginepeople are calling for.
I worked in the South Bronx.
I worked in Brooklyn North,which is areas like Williamsburg

(04:04):
, greenpoint and Bed-Stuy, whichis areas like Williamsburg,
greenpoint and Bed-Stuy, whichis nothing like it is today.
Today you can go for a strollat any time in those areas.

Raul Lopez (04:13):
My wife's from Williamsburg too, so she tells
me how different it was fromback in the day.

Marco Benitez (04:18):
Oh yeah, no, I had butcher knives pulled out on
me there were people chasingafter us with clubs, bats,
whatever it was it was, andthat's that.
We were in full uniform.
They didn't care, um, but itwas a lot different.
So that was my first step in ininto the medical field, and I
remember the first day at myBrooklyn facility that I was

(04:41):
assigned to, I was working withthis really nice guy I can't
remember his name and we werejust chatting it up.
I was young.
I started when I was 19 years,actually 20.
I had just turned 20.
And we were talking in theambulance, just waiting for our
next job, and he says you knowwhat?
You remind me a lot of myself.
He says I'm going to give you avery good piece of advice.
He says quit this job as fastas you can.

(05:07):
I said what he's like quit.
He's like get out, get out ofthis job, he said, because I was
the same person sitting rightthere where you are saying
exactly what you were saying.
He says and now, 10 years later, I have a mortgage, I have a
wife, I have a beautifuldaughter, he's like and I can't
go anywhere.
So he says right now, you don'thave any of that.
He's like and I can't goanywhere.
So he says right now you don'thave any of that.
He's like get out of here asfast as you can and pursue that
career in medicine that you wantto pursue.

Raul Lopez (05:30):
And how did that make you feel?

Marco Benitez (05:57):
Well when he said get out, I was like dang, I
thought he was trying to kick meout the ambulance, you know, in
that moment.
So that was my first reaction.
Again, I was kind of naive.
It was my first real job, myonly job I had before that was a
cashier at QFood up until thatpoint.
So you know, I felt a littleout of my place there, you know.
I'm sure, school part time,pretty much.
Maybe a couple of months afterhe said that Started doing
school part time, college parttime, and I just knew that I was
not moving at a pace that Iwould want to achieve the goals

(06:17):
that I had.
So I wound up taking a leave ofabsence and then eventually
just did college full time.

Raul Lopez (06:26):
Okay, and is that when you started doing the
physician assistant aspect ofthings?

Marco Benitez (06:31):
No, no, no.
So when I started college Istarted a little bit later.
I didn't start college until Iwas 23.
So I had done a couple of yearson the ambulance.
So I started college around 23and my major was in laboratory
science.
So eventually I earned abachelor of science and it's a

(06:55):
long drawn out name, but it'smedical biology with a
specialization in biomedicaltechnology.
I minored in pre-med and Iwound up working for the
university as an EMT as well inthe ambulance, and so that got
me some perks as being anemployee for the university.
So I stayed also for themaster's and did a master's

(07:17):
essentially in the same thing,just with a concentration in
medical chemistry and a minor inhematology.
So you know boring nerd stuff.
It was fascinating to me and itwas in that transition from
bachelor's to master's that Irealized, okay, bachelor's
degree, I don't want to dolaboratory medicine.

(07:37):
So I was going to get into aprogram that's highly
specialized.
There's like a hundredapplicants, they accept seven
and somehow I got in.
So I got accepted to theprogram.
And then I withdrew from theprogram like four days before it
started, cause there wassomething inside of me that said
that's not the path for you.
That's not the path for you andI lost some money on the
deposit and the director of theprogram you know was pretty much

(08:01):
yelling at me for 45 minutes onthe phone trying to convince to
come back to the program itstarted off with is something
wrong.
Then it started trying toconvince me and then it finished
up with.
You know you stole somebody'sspot and somebody couldn't take
it yeah, so I felt horrible.
I felt horrible, you know so,but I just something in me, when
I, even though I was movingforward with it, something in me

(08:22):
was like that's not the pathfor you, not the path for you,
so I walked away.

Raul Lopez (08:28):
It's a hard thing, probably especially at that
point in your life, for a lot ofus to listen to our instincts.
What was that buildup for youto realize and say, okay, I got
to get off, get off.
You know, it's just a pisser,get off the pot, Like no, I
gotta, I gotta make this move.

Marco Benitez (08:48):
Yeah, the timeline was moving very quickly
.
The timeline moved very quickly.
The program was introduced tome by one of my professors and
the program was calledcardiovascular perfusion
technologists.
So essentially these are thetechnicians that work the heart
lung machine.
So when you're doing bypasssurgeries, when you're doing an
open heart surgery, you have todisconnect the blood flow from

(09:11):
the heart because they'reworking on the heart and it has
to go into the bypass machine.
So that program was to trainyou how to work that machine.
It was like it's a whole degreejust to run that machine.
The money was good, but when Iobserved one day I realized the

(09:32):
lifestyle, just the way the jobwas, what the job entailed, and
it wasn't so much thecomplexities of the job because,
like I took all these nerdclasses, I was just going to
continue.
Why stop now?
But what really lacked for mewas this lack of human
connection.
Outside of talking with yourcoworkers and having the surgeon

(09:53):
yell out orders to you in orderto restart the flow and so on
and so forth, there was no realhuman element where I can make a
human connection.
And it's funny because I neverthought of it, about it until
now that I'm telling you.
But that's something thatreally came up again in my

(10:14):
transition from being a PA andinto going and choosing to go
into coaching.
So I guess we'll get into thatin a little bit, but that was
the deciding factor.
I realized that I was justgoing to be engaging with my
colleagues, but I was not goingto be engaging with patients,
and that was something that wasimportant to me, just making a
real human connection withsomeone.

(10:34):
And then the timeline wasmoving so quick that I just had
to jump on and say I got to makethis hard decision.

Raul Lopez (10:40):
I got you.

Marco Benitez (10:41):
I got you.

Raul Lopez (10:42):
So what did you do next after that?

Marco Benitez (10:46):
So I switched the major into the other masters,
which was in the laboratoryscience Um.
I just did my best effort there,but at that point I was already
looking into going into PAschool.
So I was looking at thedifferent physician assistant
programs.
Um, I applied to like two orthree but I missed like one

(11:10):
deadline.
And so there was like oneschool left that I had not heard
back from, which was St John'sUniversity.
And then I actually wasn't StJohn's at the time.
I'm probably dating myself atthis point.
There were Catholic medicalcenters, catholic medical
centers which was in conjunctionwith St John's University, and
I got into that program, andhalfway through my program

(11:34):
Catholic medical centers soldthe program to St John's
University officially and so,lucky for me, then I get a
certificate from St John'sUniversity, so looks better on a
resume.

Raul Lopez (11:44):
Yeah, I'm sure Nice.
And so during this time whereyou're doing all this things in
college and getting yourmaster's, is this kind of where
you started dealing with some ofthe major aspects of burnout,
especially in the medical field,that it's so prevalent?

Marco Benitez (12:10):
it.
No, no, and and it's because Iwas not aware and exposed to
that that I probably movedforward so eagerly, like you
know, all clicking my heels,like I found my field.
I found my field because Ithink that if I would have seen
that, I probably would havepulled back and thought twice
about going into medicine as aprovider.
So that's the interesting part.
I didn't see it.
I didn't see it when I appliedto the program.
I didn't see it all throughoutthe entire program.

(12:31):
I didn't see it when Igraduated until about four or
five years after I was workingin the profession.
And it's worse that it happenedthen.
It's worse that it happenedthen Because at that point I'm
getting five years of paychecks.
At that point I'm getting fiveyears of status, patients

(12:57):
looking up to me.
Thank you for your help.
I was working in a privatepractice.
I'm going out to all thesepharmaceutical dinners.
I'm eating at five-starrestaurants for free because the
pharmaceutical reps would takeus out.
I'm having all theseexperiences and it was then that
I started to realize somethingdoes not feel right on many

(13:19):
levels for me, for me, for me.
I will never speak bad aboutthe profession.
It's a fantastic profession,not just for those in it, but
for the care, the patient careand the service they provide to
people in need.
So never speak bad about theprofession.
Something just did not sit rightwith me around that time, and
it was around that five yearmark that I started to feel like

(13:41):
man.
Why am I tired all the time?
Why am I so not motivated?
Why am I eating all this crappyfood all the time?
Why am I having wine so oftento relax and unwind?
Why is Sunday so irritating andbothersome and frustrating to
me?
Sunday nights, the Sunday, thesun goes down and the stress

(14:04):
starts to go up.
Why is it that I go on vacation?
One week vacation, I can'trelax into the vacation until
the third day, and by the fourthand fifth day I'm already
anticipating the stress that I'mgoing to come back to.
So I couldn't walk away fromthe job.
So it was worse that ithappened then.

(14:25):
But it's a good question.
Did I see the burnout in thebeginning?
And that's what got meinterested?
No, because I would not havebeen interested.
I would have been scared away.

Raul Lopez (14:35):
It's like one of those when you go for a job
interview and everybody's like,oh, this company's great and
everything's amazing andeverybody's awesome, and then
you go there for the first daywe're actually working like,
dude, get out, now it's, you'rethe guy yes, that guy in your
ambulance telling you to leave.

Marco Benitez (14:50):
You know like it's like yeah, yeah yeah, and
it's funny you mentioned that,because I used to do uh, keep it
vague because I don't want topoint fingers at any place in
particular.
But, um, I used to do interviewsfor medical providers for a
company and I was selling it tothem.
But there was a lot of the samecomplaints coming back from

(15:13):
people and I started to sweatlike, oh my gosh, I'm
interviewing people and tellingthem all the great things about
the company because that's whatI have to do, but I know that
there's a lot more behind thescenes.

Raul Lopez (15:24):
And I know in medicine, in any type of health
aspect, it's a lot of hours,it's a lot of you know long
shifts repetitively throughoutthe week where you're nonstop
and then you go home and sleepfor a day and you come back for
another, you know two days on,some things like that.
And so you know I can't imaginethe type of stress that you

(15:46):
deal with and especially and sothey're not showing it to you
early on and you're going inthere and you have to deal with
that stress, like I mean I don'tknow if I'd be able to handle
it or whatever.
So I'm glad that you know youwould take from that and kind of
move on for it and do that.
But you know.
So you started workinginitially as a PA and you know

(16:08):
what was that like initiallywhen you first started.

Marco Benitez (16:11):
Yeah, it was great.
It was great.
You know that whole scenario ofthe long hours and lack of
sleep and waking up.
You're describing my clinicalyear when I was finishing up
school.
You have that one year ofinternship program year when I
was finishing up school.
You have that one year ofinternship program.
So you described my OBGYNrotation where I had a what they
call call and take calls.
So call is not that you're oncall and you got to come in and

(16:33):
call is that you got to staythere.
So imagine we went into worktoday at five in the morning and
I didn't leave tomorrow until10 AM, 10, 30 in the morning,
like that was shift.
And in obgyn um, there you werereally on edge.
There's a room you can go to torest but you know they, they,
they use pagers in the hospitalso they would page you.

(16:54):
And then you got to deliver ababy in the middle of the night.
You know.
So like push, push, you know,and you're trying to be all you
know in it, but you know you'relike running on 44 minutes of
sleep.
You know for the whole night andyou know in it, but you know
you're like running on 44minutes of sleep you know, for
the whole night and you know,congratulations, it's a girl,
unless if I cut off the wrongcord you know, it's not like one
of those situations, butstarting the work in after I

(17:18):
finished was really great.
I worked in private practice.
I didn't think I was going tolike that setting as much, so I
worked in primary care, internalmedicine.
I was doing primary care forquite some time and it was good
because I had worked in auniform for most of my EMT
career, you know.
And then I was in you knowscrubs in the hospitals and it
was nice to finally have wearsome dress clothes and put on a

(17:41):
white coat and I had businesscards and I had a desk and you
know I thought I was like amojente grande you know my life,
you know I was like wow, youknow, and and and.
In that setting, because you canfollow up with people, I had
that opportunity to engage andto follow through their progress
.
You know, through the ups anddowns that they were going

(18:02):
through.
And you know you have thoseproverbial moments of thank you
for helping me if it wasn't foryou, kind of moments, and we
don't see it that way, that'sjust our job.
People are grateful, butsometimes they bring you fruit
baskets or a bottle of wineduring the holidays and I had a
patient who was a butcher.

(18:22):
I had a patient who was abutcher.
He's like come to my butchershop.
So I showed up there and theguy gave me like this ridiculous
deal.
I remember it was like grillingfor for like 4th of July.
I'm like hey, how you doing?
Like I saw him.
It's like hey, doc, how are you?
They called us doc.
He was over PA.
He called us doc.
Hey doc, hey doc, how are you?

(18:44):
He stopped what he's doing.
He's like tell me what you want.
I'm like look, I got x amountof people.
I need a nice mix of stuff.
He's like don't worry, dude,filled up shopping bags.
I think it had to be.
Maybe it felt like weights.
They felt like weights.
It was like no lie, there wasprobably at least 30 to 40
pounds of meat between those twobags ribs and steaks and like,

(19:07):
wow, I love my life, you know,and I got into my my first nice
car because I had only had beatup used cars up until then.
Um, so it was, it was good.
It was good until it wasn't.

Raul Lopez (19:21):
Yeah, and I was gonna ask you too one of the
things you mentioned earlier wasthat you didn't have the human
interaction in that first setwhen you were studying um
whatever the blood thingy.
Uh, the blood thing yeah thatblood, you know the blood stuff,
um, and so did, did.
Were you getting that level,that, that aspect of
satisfaction from the as a PA?

Marco Benitez (19:42):
Yes, yes, but it's funny because that.
I don't know if I don't know ifneed is the right word, but that
that affinity for a deep humanconnection started to evolve a

(20:03):
lot more.
So I was getting that in thebeginning because it was so much
different from the ambulanceand the ambulance I'm with the
person 20, 30 minutes, maybe anhour on a long job.
You know, you talk with them.
You never see them again, neversee them again In in the school
program.
It was a little bit differentbecause again get a little more

(20:25):
time with them because you're ata place at a clinic or at a
hospital, but again you're onlythere for a short period of time
.
Training In the office.
It was also the same thing NowI had a longer period of time.
But now the way I was connectingchanged because there was a
point and I want to choose mywords carefully because I don't
want to sound as though I'mspeaking out against the medical

(20:52):
profession or the way medicineis practiced but for myself I
found that I felt a deeperconnection and my patients were
more receptive and voiced morepositive feedback when I stopped
jotting the notes and was notso interested in writing the

(21:13):
prescriptions, but rather when Iput down the pen and I engaged
in active listening and inuncovering where is this all
coming from, because it wasthere for the first time that I
started to realize that manypeople tend to manifest physical
symptoms for reasons that arenot explained by physical

(21:35):
causality, if that makes anysense.
And again, this is not a blanketstatement saying that
everything is psychogenic innature.
But I did find certain patternsand I became very astute at
identifying them and asking theright questions to the right

(21:56):
people at the right time, and itwould help me uncover more.
So the depth and the profundityof that human connection
evolved, and when it got to thatpoint it really started to make
my practice of medicine lessfulfilling, because it seemed a
little bit more business-likeand a little bit more routine

(22:21):
and robotic, so to speak, andfor me that just wasn't
something that ignited me likeit used to.

Raul Lopez (22:28):
And what ultimately triggered that transition, for
you to start wanting to leavebeing a PA and start becoming
ultimately what you become acoach.

Marco Benitez (22:41):
Yeah, so the transition is still ongoing,
believe it or not, because it'snot that I have.
It's not that I have a disdainor dislike for the medical
profession.
It's just not something I wantto depend on to provide for the
rest of my life.
There's a lot of limitationswithin my personal profession.

(23:02):
There are certain economicceilings, there are certain
practice barriers that I have,so I don't have the 100%
autonomy and freedom that we'llsay a physician, an MD or a DO
has, or even, at least in NewYork, nurse practitioners have.
The legislation's a little bitdifferent.

(23:22):
So there's more restrictionsfor me within my professional
title.
But I love practicing medicine.
It provides me what I call themental calisthenics.
I'm able to problem solve,piece things together, provide
solutions.
So I still like that.
So the transition is stillongoing.

(23:42):
But the transition began.
The bug, as I'll call it,started kind of nudging.
That bug started around likethat fifth year.
The transition out of it.
The very, very beginningsprobably happened about maybe

(24:07):
three to four years after that,Maybe about three years after
that, maybe about three yearsafter that.
The beginnings of it, becauseit didn't start with I want to
be a coach.
No, it started with this reallydeep desire for personal
development, deepening myspirituality, understanding life

(24:29):
purpose, understanding what aremy abilities, my gifts, my
talents, things that comenatural to me, what are the most
common things that people arealways telling me that I do well
, that attract them to me as aprovider.
So it was a few years of reallysoul searching, so to speak,

(24:53):
and that personal development, alot of reading, a lot of
thinking, beginning to meditate,things like that.

Raul Lopez (25:01):
It's a funny way that you put it where you.
One of the things you justmentioned was that you know,
finally, starting to listen topeople, what they were telling
me I'm good at or my strengthsare, and it's something I think
a lot of us never do for a longtime.
We just keep our head down andkeep working, and so you know,
that kind of resonated with me alot in my life because it's you

(25:23):
know the same thing.
You start doing stuff now andyou're like you know you should
have been doing this for years.
It's something you're good atand something I've told you for
a while, but one of the things Idid read that was in your bio
is that you mentioned you had aconversation with your parents
that helped you discover yourtrue calling.
Can you tell me a little bitabout that?

Marco Benitez (25:42):
I don't think I had a conversation with my
parents per se.
I didn't have a conversationwith them really.

Raul Lopez (25:55):
I don't think I We'll move on.
I don't think I.
It was something I read on yourwebsite, so I'm not going to.

Marco Benitez (26:01):
Really.
I got to check my website then,jesus.

Raul Lopez (26:04):
If that's there, I got to update it.
Let's move on.
I'll pull all politically on it, okay, but okay so so once,
once you've officially put yourfoot in the water and you start
deciding I'm going this route,what were some of the things you
had to do to start getting intobecoming a coach?

Marco Benitez (26:21):
Yeah, the first things I had to do was wrestle
with internal barriers.
That was the first thing,because there's a whole bunch of
questions that come into playwhen you make the decision to
walk away from a profession thatyou just spent eight years and
hundreds of thousands of dollarsin tuition dollars to get into
and say, yeah, I don't like it,I want to do something else.

(26:42):
And.
I was married at the time, so Ihad to think about the familial
repercussions.
I had my son, who was just acouple of years old at that time
, so I had to think about thefamilial repercussions.
I had my son, who was just acouple of years old at that time
, so I had to think about theparental implications of that.
The provider stuff the providerstuff I had to think of.
You know, it wasn't the kind ofthing where, yeah, I'm just
going to do this.

(27:02):
You know, had I been single, Iprobably would have just been a
little bit more abrupt about thetransition.
But that was the first thing.
Number one was that.
The second was my own feelingson public perception.
What are people going to saywhen I tell them I'm a coach?
And they don't even know whatthat is and they're going to
think that, you know, I'm aloofand are you crazy?
You went all this time inschool and you want to do

(27:24):
coaching.
You want to be a life coach,you know.
So that was the first part.
That was the first.
Obstacle was battling all thisinternal stuff, and the one
conversation I did have was withmy wife at the time and asking
her, and I kind of just laid itout to her.
I said look, here's where Ifeel like I could apply all of

(27:45):
it, you know, and I playedaround with a bunch of stuff.
I'm like maybe I should go tomedical school and now get my MD
license, and maybe I should gointo psychology and become a
psychologist and all this stuff.
And then eventually I landedinto the coaching and I remember
I had told my wife at the timeI said look, here's where I feel
I could use everything thatI've been born with and

(28:05):
everything that I've learned andthe ways that I feel I could
connect with people andeverything that I've learned and
the ways that I feel I canconnect with people.
Here's the financial investmentit's going to take for me to
attend this program, which islike the number one program in
the world.
I wanted to go to the best.
So I wanted to go to thatprogram.
Here's the financial investment.
I said if you feel it's okay forme to do this and the financial

(28:30):
investment, here's how I wouldfinance it.
If you're okay with it, let meknow and I'll move forward.
But if you're not okay with it,I completely understand and
I'll let it go.
And she supported me and shesaid, yeah, you know, move
forward with it.
And so I did, and so I did.
So I applied to the program.
I got in.

(28:50):
It was called the Institute ofProfessional Excellence in
Coaching.
It's IPEC for short.
It's considered, at least atthe time, the number one
coaching program in the world.
It was a long program.
I forgot how many hours it was,but it was a lot of hours and
it was broken up over severalmonths.
They had modules and you didcoaching in between.
It was very hands-on andintensive and, um, yeah, so I I

(29:16):
did the training.
That was in 2016.

Raul Lopez (29:19):
That was in 2016 were you still working as a pa
while you were doing that, orwas that just kind of?
Yeah, so you're doing both,juggling both yeah, I was
working as a pa.

Marco Benitez (29:28):
I didn't mention that I started a recruiting
company when I finished schooland I was still trying to
recruit.
So I was working as a pa.
I didn't mention that I starteda recruiting company when I
finished school and I was stilltrying to recruit.
So I was trying to handle thatand I was trying to be, you know
, a present husband.
I was trying to be a presentfather.
Um, by 2016, I had already hadmy daughter, so now we had the
both kids at the time, um, so,so there was a lot to juggle.

Raul Lopez (29:50):
There was a lot to juggle, speaking about burnout.
Right, it's a lot.
It's a lot, exactly, exactly.
And when you were doing this,did you know burnout on
authenticity was what you wantedto focus on, or were you kind
of still trying to figure thatout?

Marco Benitez (30:14):
out.
So no, I didn't know that Iwanted to focus on both.
My message of the, the messageof authenticity, has always been
there from the beginning, but Inever realized it until maybe a
year and a half ago.
I had always talked about itbut I never put it under that
one word authenticity.
I created other words around it, I would do descriptors, but I
never consolidated into that oneword Burnout.

(30:35):
I knew because at that point Ihad already experienced burnout
Big time, big time.
That was the biggest big timeand I left the job before I went
into the coaching.
So I knew that, but I didn'tfocus in on that just yet.
When I eventually started doingthe coaching again, I tried
different monikers.
I started with I want to.
I'm a peak performance coach.

(30:56):
I'm a.
What did I say?
I'm a, I'm a, I'm a life coachfor professionals who want to be
present for their families.
Like I came up with a wholebunch of different things and it
wasn't until about maybe twoyears ago, year and a half, two
years ago, that I really startedto just narrow it down, to just

(31:16):
really become accepting of thetwo things, mostly authenticity.
And then there's burnout.
At my core, even within burnoutcoach is authenticity coaching.
I could explain that to you, Iguess, in a little bit when we
get to that, so I don't jumparound too much.
But that's where it that'swhere they came together In my

(31:39):
mind.
It was definitely authenticityis the core message.
But how do I market a termwhich by definition means it is
different for every person?
And when you do marketing 101,you have to find that one
message, the core message andthe thing that applies who's
your ideal customer avatar?

(32:00):
Where do they shop?
What do they buy?
What car do they drive?
Where do they hang out?
But by authenticity I can't dothat.
I never figured out how to dothat, because if being an
executive is authentic to you,being a simple person who
doesn't have a high-profile joblike that might not be authentic

(32:22):
to them.
They just want to have apeaceful job that they're happy
with and make enough to pay thebills.
And then you have someone whereauthenticity is hey, I want to
be present for my family, but Ialso want to have a hobby that
means something to me.
So burnout eventually becamethat case, that shell that

(32:42):
encompassed everything that Icould market into one solid
stream.
So it's burnout coaching forhealthcare care professionals
right now.

Raul Lopez (32:52):
But at the core of it, it's all authenticity yeah,
and so let's let's move rightinto it, man, and let's talk
about burnout and authenticity.
You know, like, you know um,you know how are they, how are
they related and how, how didthat come together?

Marco Benitez (33:07):
so the first thing to understand is that
stress and burnout are not thesame thing.
It's a very importantdistinction to make People say
at work, oh, I'm burnt out.
They may or may they may beburnt out, but they also may not
be burnt out, just like when wesay, oh I'm starving.
You're not starving, you justyou know you just can't get to

(33:28):
Chipotle fast enough.
You know like you're notstarving.
You know there are people thatare starving.
You just, you know you justcan't get to Chipotle fast
enough.
You know like you're notstarving.
You know there are people thatare starving.
There are people that are burntout.
Burnout is now considered to bea medical diagnosis.
Burnout has several criteria.
They call it three dimensions.
So the first is um exhaustion,the second one is disinterest

(33:53):
and the third one is detachmentfrom engagement at work.
Essentially, the reason why youwent into that job in the first
place is lost to you.
So there's three dimensions toburnout.
Burnout is what happens whenstress is left unchecked for a
prolonged period of time.

(34:14):
That period of time is notuniform, it's not universal.
It's different for each person.
It depends what has stressedyou out, what that stressor
means to you and how present.
That stress has been throughoutyour experience.
In the beginnings of whenburnout was coined, which is

(34:36):
back in the 70s, this guy namedHerbert Frudenberger.
He wrote this paper called theHigh Cost of High Achieving,
where he coined the term burnoutfor the first time it was
described, and even up untilrecently it's described as a
workplace phenomenon.
We know now that burnout is notisolated to the workplace.
It is something that has itsplace in not just work.

(35:01):
But there's also people thathave burnout in their personal
lives.
There's caregiver burnout.
Caregiver burnout's a hugething.
So people that have elderlyparents, that have medical
issues or they have childrenwith special needs, they have a
burnout, probably even moreintense than people at work.
Because, whether as much as aperson feels that they can't
quit their job or not, you canquit a job.

(35:23):
As much as oh, I can't.
You can literally just go inthere and say I quit, that's it.
I'm not saying it's not goingto be due to precautions and
your life's not going to fallapart and you can't pay your
bills, but you can absolutely gointo a job and say I quit,
that's it.
For people that have parentswith medical conditions,
children with special needs,they cannot quit.

(35:43):
They can't quit.
So how does this all tie intoauthenticity?
It's my belief that everysingle person who suffers from
burnout has at least one momentwhere they start to question is
this really what I should bedoing with my life?
Is this really the best use ofmy talents, my skills, my

(36:08):
ability?
Was there a path that I feltdeep within me that I wanted to
walk down, and I chose adifferent one.
And here I am.
So these existential questionsare really rooted in
authenticity, because if it wasjust a matter of talking to the
boss and oh, could you delegatesome responsibilities to someone

(36:30):
else and maybe I need a coupleof days off, then it would be a
lot easier to manage.
But burnout and this issomething that's going to blow
your mind Burnout is actuallyshown to change the structures
of your brain.
Mris that were done on peoplewith burnout shows that there

(36:51):
are structures of the brain thatshrink within the brain in
people with burnout.

Raul Lopez (37:00):
That's crazy.

Marco Benitez (37:02):
Yeah, not stress.
Yeah, burnout, yeah.
And and when you have somethingin Spanish, well, we're talking
Spanglish here, so that's cool.
There's a saying in Spanishthat says my mom, says that all
the time.
Yes.

(37:23):
And then you get some weirdpatients like mine.
They say, hey, I don't knowabout that.
I've heard that quite a fewtimes.
I don't know if you havediabetes emocional, that's not a
real thing.
But burnout actually isenfermándose de los nervios, you
really are, because it not onlychanges the structure of your

(37:45):
brain, it changes your sleeppattern, it changes your
behavior.
It can alter your brain, itchanges your sleep pattern, it
changes your behavior, it canalter your personality, it can
cause hormonal fluctuations.
So it's really, really, reallysomething that I mean.
I hesitate to call it a killer,but in some cultures they

(38:06):
actually have a word for itdeath by overwork.
In Japan they call it a garrosy, if I'm not mistaken.
In china it's guarosa, and thenin korean I forget the word,
but it's some variants of thatbut they have a word for them
death by overwork.
So at the core of burnout issomething deeper within oneself

(38:29):
to be authentic, to do somethingthat really resonates with
their authentic self.
And that's how I find thecorrelation between the two.
So when I find someone that'sburnt out, I can find someone
that needs coaching around theirauthenticity.
That's how I solve the problemof marketing authenticity.

Raul Lopez (38:47):
Yeah, for Latinos, I think, for me, and Latino
especially, an immigrant as well.
You know the the idea of youwork.
You work regardless of whetheryou like it or not.
You work, whether it's it'sfulfilling, whether or not it's
giving you what you want.
You just work.
You need to put food on thetable and that's what's
important for you, and theneverything else is supplemental

(39:09):
and can fall by the wayside.
And you know, do you tend tofind that sour mentality kind of
helps drive eventually peopleinto burnout.

Marco Benitez (39:20):
I would say it's.
It can be a contributing factor, and it's interesting you
mentioned that because I neverrealized that until I started
working as a PA and my jobs upuntil maybe 12 years into it all
my jobs up until then were allin Spanish speaking communities
because I spoke Spanish.
So that's what got me in andwhat I came to realize is that

(39:43):
the life of a Latino in theUnited States is a life of work
and it's a life of struggle forthose that immigrate here and
again.
I want to tread lightly aroundthis topic because currently
there's this whole thing goingon with the migrants and I know
there's a lot of strong opinionsthere, but what I will just
highlight is just a couple ofthe patterns that I had seen is
that you have some, you have aperson that comes in seeking a

(40:08):
better life because they weretold by someone it's a better
life, which in many respectsprobably is, but an
underestimation of the amount ofwork that it takes to make ends
meet, at least in New York.
I can only comment about NewYork and New York is freaking
expensive fact.
I just saw an article yesterdaythat says that the cost of

(40:29):
living required for a family offour to live comfortably in New
York is about 319,000 a year,yeah, and for a single person I
think it's like 217, 217,000.
So you have someone that comesin not speaking the language,
someone that wants to work, butthe amount of work that they do

(40:50):
does not yield enough income toprovide a comfortable life, and
so many times they have to takeon two jobs, and so they have
kids at home, so they put themin the schools, but because they
work so much they can't be athome with the kids the way they
would be normally in their owncountries, and so they find that
the kids are finding their ownpath, but they get mixed up in

(41:15):
sometimes the wrong crowds,which then leads the kids down
the wrong path, which leads tomore stress on the parents.
Now the kids don't think thatthe parents get it because the
kids have a more Americanizedmentality, and then it just
becomes a very difficult andchallenging situation, and I saw
patient after patient afterpatient with the same struggle

(41:44):
you know, like three hours tocome to a medical visit, you
know, and that's it.
And at the clinic that I workedat it was walk-in, so it was two
hours waiting time.
So you got people coming to thefront desk.
Please, please, please.
I have to go back to work andso they're not there to parent
the kids.
They barely make enough money.
They don't have time forthemselves On the downtime they
do have.
Then they have to do oficios enla casa, right?

(42:11):
We all know about oficios en lacasa, right, so you gotta wash
the floor and you know in ourculture like the house is clean
impeccable.
That's just how it is, um, butyeah, you know, that's.
That's.
That's what I came to observe.
Again, it's in my ownexperience and and it's in the
people that I interacted withand I don't make a
generalization as to everyperson with whom you know
immigrates into the country butfor the many that I encountered

(42:36):
that shared their story with me,that I saw their stresses, that
I had to try and help them inwhatever way that I could within
my role, absolutely that wasone of the biggest factors, at
least for them, leading toburnout.
And then the question is wheredo you go from there?
Where do you go?
Do you quit a job?
And that makes end meet, sothat way you could raise your

(43:00):
kids, you could be more presentin their life.
How do you check your kids'homework when you don't
understand the language?
How do you advocate to theschool for being fair?
How can you get a full storywhen your kid comes home and
says oh, I got in troublebecause so-and-so was bothering
me, but you can't communicatewith them?
It's such a difficult life andit's like I said, it wasn't one,
it was so many people.

(43:21):
And then the thought is do I goback to my country.
Well, if I go back, it's worsethere.
It's worse there.
There's no opportunities forwork there, so it's a very
difficult life.
It's a very difficult life.
There's no easy answer or easysolution to it and, without a
doubt, there's a community ofpeople burnt out around those

(43:43):
circumstances.

Raul Lopez (43:45):
Yeah, yeah, and I think it's just.
It's crazy, I mean, the way youput it all together and you
know the level of finances andhow much money you can make
where it's like.
You know, I'm thankful to kindof where I've gotten in my life,
that I have the capabilities ofbeing able to say, you know, I
would never want to become likea C-level executive, because I

(44:05):
want to balance my work-lifebalance and be at home like my
kid and I work from home and Iget to take my daughter to
soccer and I, you know, do thestuff and I'm thankful that I'm
in a situation.
But that's not everybody's case.
People do have situations whereit feels like they're stuck
between a rock and a hard place.

Marco Benitez (44:31):
So you know, I guess for people who are dealing
with this, you know what aresome ways for them to start
recognizing that.
Maybe you're starting to getinto that burnout state.
Yeah, so burnout is consideredto have an insidious onset.
An insidious onset in that itcomes in little by little, you
know.
So there's this story about ifyou take a frog and you put it
in boiling water, it'll jump out.
But if you put the frog in warmwater and you gradually heat up
the water, it'll eventually dienot knowing that the water is

(44:52):
boiling it.
I mean, scientifically, that'snot correct.

Raul Lopez (44:57):
But still the story goes that way.
It's a cute story, yeah.
Well, not cute, but yeah, Poorfrog.
Poor frog.
Bendito.
Sana, sana, colito de rana yeahyeah, yeah.

Marco Benitez (45:25):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But the onset of burnout isvery similar in that many times
people don't even know that it'shappening.
They don't even realize it.
Read fatigue is the most commonsymptom.
So I would say that if a personis going to a job that they
know that they're not happy withand they're constantly tired
and tired oh, I'm tired at work,oh, I'm tired at home this may
be an indicator that you'realready in burnout, because many

(45:47):
times you don't know that it'shappening.
So I've been stressed, I'vebeen stressed, I'm in stress.
Now I'm just tired, I'm tired,I'm tired.
Yeah, that might be it.
Then when you give that, thenwhen you get that, I don't
really give a crap.
Mentality like I don't careabout this job, they don't pay
me enough for this.

Raul Lopez (46:11):
That could also be an indicator that you're in
burnout.
And what are some things thatyou, when you have your patients
and you have your people you'recoaching to help them kind of
get out of it.
Like what, what's some of theyou know?
I know there's no all of cure,it's not a pill you can take in
your your do it, but like, whatare some things that you know
people could do when they startrecognizing some of these things
?

Marco Benitez (46:27):
Yeah.
So the first thing is just tostep back and to realize okay,
I'm beginning to notice thatthere's an excessive amount of
fatigue, despite how much I'msleeping.
The first step, the first firstfirst step when I get people,
is I tell them go get a checkup.
Make sure your checkup is up todate, because there are
physical, biological, medicalconditions that can mimic some

(46:48):
of the symptoms of burnout.
So there could be things withthat are thyroid related, blood
pressure related, um, uh, thingswith abnormal lipids, so like
your cholesterol, things of thatnature.
Uh, diabetes, depression, uh,anxiety, uh, you know, get your,
your, your vitamin levelschecked out.
So the first thing is go for acheckup.

(47:08):
Go for a checkup If all of thatis clear.
Now we move on to the nextthing.
Let's start to look at whatwould you do if you knew that
you could not fail.
So let's say you presented withthis Okay, here, look, you
could do whatever you want rightnow and for, in terms of work
and a career, what would you doif you knew you could not fail?
What's the answer that comes upfor you?

(47:30):
Write that down.
Now we're going to look at this.
And how long has that been?
And it's it's a reasonablequestion.
You want to give an honestanswer.
You don't want to givesomething like you know oh, if I
knew I could not fail, I'd be ayou know, a NBA all-star.
Yeah, okay, I mean, you're a 68year old person, you're not
going to get into the.
You're not going to get intothe MBA just yet, you know.

(47:51):
But something realistic if youknew you could not fail, what
would you want to do?
So if you give yourself anhonest, realistic answer now,
how long has that been there?
Most times, the answer thatthey put is not something new.
It's something that's beenthere for a while.
How they do that work may lookdifferent now than it did back

(48:13):
then, but the core of what theywanted to do still lies within
there.
So that would be one of thefirst things I would do is
identify what would I do if Iknew I could not fail and get a
checkup.

Raul Lopez (48:24):
And get a checkup.
Nice nice.
Well, no, that's good man,that's good, that's good
information and, I think, forintrospection.
You know like, check, listeningto yourself, part of your
authenticity, aspect of whatyou're saying is find out what.
What drives you.
I'm sure is a big factor on,you know, keeping you from
feeling because, like you saidbefore, stress doesn't mean

(48:46):
you're burnt out.
You could be stressed and stillbe happy at the job yard
because you thrive off of stress.
Some people thrive off ofstress.
So you know there's a balancethat needs to be done for that
so and so, as far as aprofessional coach that you have
or whatever, are there a lot oflike burnout coaches?

(49:07):
Is it a very niche field?

Marco Benitez (49:10):
I think there's a lot of.
There's definitely a lot ofcoaches out there.
Um, there's probably a goodamount of burnout coaches.
You know, they.
They always talk about theriches are in the niches or the
reaches are in the niches.
Right.
Um, so you'll, you'll find a fewpeople out there that
specialize in healthcare burnout.
But coaches, like otherprofessions, you really have to

(49:35):
have what I describe as anenergetic connection with
someone, and I think everyonecould relate to that one.
Maybe to that one doctor oh, ifyou ever seen the, you remember
it's probably all consideredold now.
Remember the TV show house?
Yes, okay, so this guy was likea brilliant doctor, he was like
a class, a jerk, he was likethe worst person.

(49:56):
So, you know, sometimes you justwant someone who's academic and
intellectual and just top intheir field, and sometimes you
just need someone that you canreally, you know, vibe with.
And and I'm sure that there'smany coaches out there that are
qualified, but not everyoneyou're going to vibe with, you
know.
So there's probably a bunch outthere, and it's good that

(50:18):
there's a bunch out there.
You know, competition is good,but we're not all built the same
.
First of all, there's a lot ofprograms and there's some people
that just put the moniker, thetitle of coach, without any
formal training.
So that's one thing to keep inmind.

Raul Lopez (50:36):
So look for all those extra letters at the end
of the day.

Marco Benitez (50:44):
Look for the letters and I would even go as
far as to say and this mighteven be a vote in defense of
those people that just threw themoniker of coach on there that
the letters are importantbecause it shows that someone
took the time, the dedicationand they passed certain
standards, certain exams, toprove that they met the
standards to be considered acoach, that they're not just

(51:05):
advice giving, because a realcoach does not give you advice.
A real coach understands thatyou have the solution to your
problems.
I'm an expert at activelistening and questioning.
That's what I do as a coach.
I know how to listen, I knowhow to read between the lines
and I know how to ask you theright questions to challenge
your current thinking, tochallenge what you consider to
be truths and to help you unlockthe answers that are already

(51:28):
within you, because most of thetimes there are blocks inside.
There's four blocks thateverybody has.
That's it.
There's only four things thatblock anyone from moving forward
.
So, more importantly, after theletters, is having that initial
conversation.
Some people call it an introcall, some people call it a
discovery call or whatever.
Have that conversation.
They're usually short, between15 and, if you get someone

(51:52):
generous 30 minutes.
You know in that time you'llhave your answer.
If that's the person for you,okay, you'll follow your gut,
you'll know and so don't leave ahang on those four things.

Raul Lopez (52:04):
Yeah, go ahead, drink your water.

Marco Benitez (52:14):
I'm parched.
No, it's all good so the fourthings, yeah, the four energetic
blocks.
In my coaching disciplinethey're known as GALES, G-A-I-L.
Gales we put an S because it'smultiple right.
So I'll do them in reverse,because it goes.
When I explain them in reverse,it's going to go from least

(52:36):
personal to most personal.
So the L is limiting beliefs.
Limiting beliefs is a thoughtthat holds you back.
So an example of this would besomeone that says, well, this
job does not hire people of myage, or what was that?
I think it was Mean Girls, oneof these movies that said girls

(52:58):
with butts like this don't talkto guys with faces like yours,
or something like that.
So for the person that believesthat, then that becomes a
limiting belief.
Listen to your internaldialogue.
So you want to move forwardwith, hey, I really want to try

(53:20):
and apply for this job.
I don't know, they only hireyoung people there.
They only hire young peoplethere.
So that's the limiting belief.
I would be interpretation.
So interpretations is more likemind reading.
They're going to think this.
So an example could be you know, if you're walking in, you're

(53:40):
walking into a restaurant withyour wife and your wife, for
some reason, is on crutches andshe's holding her purse on her
shoulder and she's on crutches.
And then you say, give me yourbag.
Why no, I got it.
No, just give it to me.
Why no, I got it.
Now you feel bad because nowyou're walking to the restaurant
Like, oh, look at this guy, hiswife's on crutches and he
wouldn't even hold her bag.
So now I kind of like that.

(54:02):
That gets into your head.
So those are, those are theinterpretations.
A is assumptions.
So assumptions is things like,um, past results, future
outcomes.
So because I applied for thisC-level job three times at three
different companies and Ididn't get it, I'm not going to

(54:23):
get a C-level job.
It's clear at this point.
I'm not a C-level type person.
Or I tried three times to talkto this girl.
You know, I tried three timesto talk to this girl.
And you know, three times, orthree times, I went up to try
and meet someone at a bar andevery time I get shot down.
I'm just not the kind of personthat they want to talk to.

(54:44):
So using past results ispredicting future outcomes.
That would be your assumptions.
And now the last one is G, whichis a gremlin.
The gremlin is your innercritic.
So the gremlin says I'm notsomething enough.
I call it.
You know my coaching discipline, we call it the gremlin.

(55:05):
Some people call it your innercritic, but essentially it's
that I'm not something in avoice, so I'm not smart enough,
I'm not connected enough, I'mnot young enough, I'm not
trained enough, I'm notexperienced enough.
Whatever that voice is, that'sthe gremlin, and that one is the
most difficult to overcome.
That's why I went in reverse.
Each one becomes a little bitmore challenging to uncover

(55:27):
because they're more deeplyrooted and the gremlin is very
deeply rooted into one's persona, into one's personal
experiences.
And what I found and I think Iwrote a blog on this, I did
write a blog on the gremlin onceIs that there's different
gremlins.
So I find that there's aprimary gremlin oh, I know what

(55:48):
my gremlin is Cool, oh, great,we're going to work on it
Fantastic.
There's probably a secondarygremlin in there and there's
probably a secondary gremlin inthere and there's probably a
tertiary gremlin behind that,you know.
And these gremlins become sobig that you don't see them in
front of you.
You know, you think it's justthe landscape, but those are the
, those are the four blocks,things that hold you back.

(56:09):
Not to leave anyone hanging.

Raul Lopez (56:11):
Yeah, thanks, man.
I really appreciate you.
You.
You leave you letting thesecrets out, so so one of the
things, too, that you know tomention is I think you started
it you have a podcast now too.
You know what's your podcastabout and what do you hope to
accomplish with it.

Marco Benitez (56:27):
Yeah, my podcast is called the Business of being
you so, as you may be able toinfer from the title, it's a
podcast on authenticity.
I started it in 2020, 2021,somewhere around there, and so
I'm on my third season now, andit's a podcast about
authenticity and the differentways people choose to be
authentic.
The content has been evolvingover the last few seasons.

(56:50):
The first two seasons reallyjust the first season was really
highlighting people in businesswho chose to be authentic and
go into business with that,whatever their authenticity was.
The second one was looselybusiness and then a little bit

(57:10):
more community me sharingreflections and things to
trigger thoughts on what couldbe holding you back from being
authentic or understandingcertain aspects of authenticity.
So my goal excuse me, my goalis to inspire people to really

(57:32):
look at that one thing or thosethings within them that people
just like we were talking aboutin the beginning, that people
have been telling them hey, youknow, you could go somewhere
with this, you could start abusiness with this, you could
teach people based on that.
Are you really good at that?
So I'm, I make these, thesevideos, and I don't.
I try not to do hey guys videos.

(57:53):
So by hey guys videos.
You know I'm talking about likeit was like hey guys, how you
doing, or hey guys, I don't.
I don't like hey guys videosfor me, because I feel a
pressure of making an address toa group of people that is
acceptable to a group of people.
So I try and do videos andcontent talking to one person.

(58:15):
So I say you, I don't say youguys, just you, just one person.
And where there's one, there'shome, I, I, I, I I'm receiving
that.
I think I want to move forwardwith this.

(58:41):
I want to try somethingdifferent.
You know, and and and that's mygoal with it is if I could
connect with them there, thatone person, through the podcast,
then that may inspire them totake action, to do something.
There's a business coach she'spretty famous.
Her name is Marie Forleo.

(59:02):
I don't know if you ever heardof her, but she's pretty well
known out there and she closesher videos with something like
because the world needs thatspecial thing that only you can
provide.
I was like, damn, I should havecame up with that.
That was good, I should havethat worked, perfect for my
podcast.
But that's essentially themessage that I try and share and

(59:27):
you know I close my podcast outwith.
You can fail at what you don'twant, so you might as well take
a chance at doing what you love.
So you know that's a big partof the message and the goal that
I have with the podcast.
Like, there's so many thingsthat we do under this belief
that we're supposed to dosomething.

(59:47):
I'm supposed to be this.
A good wife is supposed to dothis.
A good manager is supposed todo this.
A good boyfriend is supposed todo this.
A good manager is supposed todo this.
A good boyfriend is supposed todo this.
You know there's so manysupposed tos and we feel that
burden of obligation, and so Iwant to switch the mindset from
this supposed to mindset into Iwant to do this and I'm going to

(01:00:12):
take a chance on it Because,look, it's either going to work
out, which is fantastic, or it'snot, and you're still where
you're at.
You had nothing to lose.
So I would say that that's thegoal.

Raul Lopez (01:00:26):
Awesome, awesome.
Well, you know I reallyappreciate it.
You know I'm glad it's workingout, and I kind of feel the same
way when I do my podcast.
You know if, if one personcomes away with something from
it, then it's success.
You know, and that's that's howI say it.
Absolutely.
But I guess you know now thatkind of get closer wrapping up
time.
But usually I ask around thistime in the podcast you know if

(01:00:50):
you could go back and talk to ayounger version of yourself and
give yourself some advice?
You know what's something youtell yourself.

Marco Benitez (01:01:00):
Invest in Google.
I'm sure you've heard thatbefore.
Invest in Google early on.
Um, I would probably tell myyounger self probably what I
tell my clients you are who youare for a reason.

(01:01:23):
You are who you are for areason.
It's not meant to make you feellike an outsider.
It's your superpower, it's yoursecret sauce and your job is to
figure out how to use that tohelp someone else.
And if you help enough people,then everything you wanted all

(01:01:44):
the finances, all the communityit all comes with it.

Raul Lopez (01:01:52):
Nice, Beautiful.
That's awesome.
Yeah, it's something that Iwish I would have known.
I would have thought that wayearlier too in my life, instead
of trying to chase that, uh,those goalposts that have been
set up for me by you know what Ithought I needed to be as
opposed to trying to be you knowmore authentic to who I'm
supposed to be.
So, um and then and that's howit is.

Marco Benitez (01:02:16):
That's the thing.
That's the thing, and thatthat's one of the other things
that that, you know, I I discusswith the people that I work
with is that everyone is doingthe best they can, and you're
trying to figure it out.
As you went along all thosegoalposts, you had good
intentions, I had goodintentions, you know, and I'm
not married anymore.
You know I had, I tried my best.

(01:02:39):
That obviously wasn't the bestfor someone you know wasn't the
best for someone you know.
In one of my own episodes thatI had recently, I had a
conversation with someone aroundthe topic of imposter syndrome,
which is kind of like feelingout of place, and then, you know
, after the episode, we justwere chatting about some stuff

(01:03:00):
and we came to realize, like youknow, the major imposter
syndrome that exists throughoutthe world is probably parenthood
, because a parent, you reallyare just winging it and the kids
think you got to figure it out.
But I think that every goodparent knows it's funny because
we were talking about like Idon't think we've ever met a
parent that says I'm doing agreat job as a parent, I figured

(01:03:23):
it all out, I'm the best parentthere is.
I don't think I've met anyparent that's ever said that.
You know, I think we say meparents would say I think I'm
doing a good job.
And then you kind of check inwith the kids.
Yeah, I hope I'm doing a goodjob, but yeah, that's just how
it is and it's not justparenting, it's just like you
said.
It's following those goalpostsin the career and hopefully, if

(01:03:47):
we're lucky enough, we'llrealize that we got to get back
on the rails of authenticitywhile we still have some energy
left in us.

Raul Lopez (01:03:55):
Yeah, it's funny the way you mentioned it about
parents too I have there's ajoke I heard from a comedian a
while back is never buyparenting books from people with
kids If it's not an old personwith adult kids that have
succeeded in life.
They don't know anything aboutparenting yet.

(01:04:17):
So listening to their advice.
But also you know with like theway you said it.
You know, I grew up my dad wasstraight, my parents were
straight.
I grew up a certain way and Ithought you know that's.
You know the way things were.
And then there's a lot of stuffthat I didn't like the way they
did growing up and that I dodifferently with my daughter.

(01:04:37):
And I sit with my dad and wetalk and he's like you know the
way I see you do stuff with yourdaughter.
I love and I wish I would havedone that with you and I took
that as like one of the biggestcompliments I could ever get
from my dad, where he's tellingme that he thinks I'm doing it
right, you know, and the wholetime I'm like God, I hope I'm
not.
It's like baking a cake I'mputting everything together.

Marco Benitez (01:04:57):
I hope it doesn't destroy itself in the oven you
know, so it's like but yeah,I've had sit downs with my kids,
especially after the separation.
You know, after after theseparation, it's been a few
years now, um, and so I had agood amount of time to myself
and done a lot of reflection anda lot of continuing my personal
growth.
But I've sat with my kids and Isaid, you know, hey, I just

(01:05:22):
want to let you know, I realized, looking back, that I parented
you wrong in this way, and Iwant to let you know that I
acknowledge that I parented youwrong in this way and I hope
that you don't hold on to that.
I want to let you know that Ifeel like I could have done
things differently and I'mtrying to do things differently
now, you know.
So there's moments like thatthat I just share with the kids.

(01:05:42):
I'm like, yeah, you know, Iknow I didn't do the best job in
this situation, you know, andkids are kids, you know, we love
you Dad.
I'm like all right.
It's because I bought you icecream, you know.

Raul Lopez (01:05:53):
But but it's growth and reflecting growth towards
kids allowed them to understandthat it's okay for them to admit
they make mistakes as well andthey have an opportunity to
learn about growth as well.
So you know absolutely kudos,kudos to you on that man.
I'm all with him.
The same way I.
I'll be the first one toapologize to my daughter if I
blew up to her too much.
I'm like okay, I took that onetoo far, as opposed to when I

(01:06:14):
was a kid.
It was just you, do you?
I was like I don't like it thatway.
But ultimately, I guess my lastquestion for you is you know how
do you say success in Spanglish?

Marco Benitez (01:06:29):
I say that you are successful if you're true to
yourself and you just gave itan honest try and you detach
yourself from the outcome, beclear on who you are and just
try it, share it in the world inwhatever way that is.
You do that, you're successful.

(01:06:52):
That's it.

Raul Lopez (01:06:54):
Beautiful, very awesome, thank you, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Like I said, I reallyappreciate you taking the time
to come on here.
I really hope to have you backin the future for other
opportunities.
So how can people reach out toyou?
You know where are you located.
What's your socials or yourwebsite, or whatever you want.

Marco Benitez (01:07:11):
Yeah, it's all pretty much the same.
So the website's coach MarcoBcom be like boy coach Marco
Bcom If you make it to thewebsite, you'll find links to
everything there, but across allthe social networks Instagram,
TikTok, Facebook, I think.
I don't even know if I use X,formerly known as Twitter, but

(01:07:33):
it's at coach Marco B as well,formerly known as Twitter but
it's at coach Marco B as well.

Raul Lopez (01:07:36):
Nice, yeah, I know, and I'll have it all in the
descript too when this comes outas well.
So, but thank you, marco, somuch.
I really appreciate you and youknow I wish you all the best
moving forward.
Thank you Appreciate it, man.

Marco Benitez (01:07:47):
Thank you, man Glad for the opportunity and I
wish you success in this podcast.

Raul Lopez (01:07:53):
Now you're going to do awesome bro.
Thank you, man.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, I'm trying trying to make, trying to get that hustle.
So I'm enjoying every aspect ofit so far and it's been really
rewarding and fulfilling.
So I feel I feel great about it.
So thank you, I can tell bro.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
So, but for everyone else, asalways, I appreciate you guys
taking the time and I hopeyou'll join me again next time

(01:08:16):
as we continue to learn how tosay success in Spanglish.
Bye.