Motu Intro

Welcome to the Masters of the Universe Summit. Last time I checked out this venue, it was like a play with books piled up, and it didn't, this is amazing. Isn't this venue awesome? So, thank you to all of you for being here. I'm sure if some of you came from the States, I heard stories of having to tell the border guards what you were going to. And that, of course, sounds incredibly odd, right? Masters of the Universe Summit, they're like, is this a cult? So, surprise, lock the doors. We're gonna get crazy. Okay, so, before I get into the details of why I created this, you should probably know who I am, because some of you are probably like, I came to watch someone else speak. And who is this guy who's taking up their time? So, my name is Mark Groves, and I essentially write, speak, and work with companies, people, couples, individuals, and I talk to them about connection. And so, I sort of have claimed the term that I'm a human connection specialist. And I feel like there's no one who does that yet, so if you're like, he's not that, you don't know what one is. So, I am that. And I sort of see the work that I do is essentially introducing people to themselves, in a way. It's like undoing the beliefs and the thoughts and the identities we've created so that we can meet ourselves, in a way. And in business, this helps with leadership and teamwork. This helps, obviously, in relationships. Pretty essential. So, that's really what I do. And the concept of this conference I'll get to, for, I'm not a detail-oriented person, so you've probably read the schedule on the website. You're like, there's no schedule. It just says, show up. And I'm like, yeah, that's what we're gonna do. So, this was really hard for me to have to put together. So, Kelsey Grant, who produced most of this, all of it, most of it, all of it. So, thank you, Kelsey. She's also speaking. So, not only is she like a matriarch, she's also, and just amazing, she also produces events. So, that's pretty cool. So, the schedule is here. If you have your phone, you wanna take a picture? Because I don't think you have a paper cup. We're very green here at MoToo. I also found out that Motoo, in Punjabi, means fat. So, that, there might be a rebranding acronym opportunity there. So, if you guys see this, hashtag schedule, hashtag short-term person. Okay, so, that's roughly what's gonna happen. I can't promise it's gonna be specifically that. Okay, so, when you guys came in, right, you're all getting chocolate. No, you're not, that's a lie. So, when you came in, you got your pictures taken with Polaroids, like throwback, right? And then, you gotta put it on an envelope, and you're like, this is weird. This is actually getting more cult-y. So, what these are is sugar cubes, is what we call them. I feel like sugar cubes aren't very nutritious, so I thought maybe they should be like chocolate cubes. This would be more healthy. But what they are, and one of my favorite activities is we're so conditioned to look for the bad, right? We're so conditioned to survey the environment and look for threats, and you know, this is ingrained in us, you know? The person who was looking for the tiger saw the tiger and ran, and the person who was eating Bon Bon's chillin' died, you know? Essentially got eaten by the tiger. It's a very sad story, and quite a dark way to start this. But, there's a positive here. When we frame our minds to look for the positive, we actually change the way our bodies feel. You know, it's a neurological pathway that's formed when we're looking for bad, and we're conditioned to do this. And so, sugar cubes, I want you to do this all weekend, is when you're in a conversation with someone, or you see a speaker that really, you know, hits you in the heart, or you have conversations, and you, you know, someone's energy just raises your energy, or their smile changes your day, or whatever it is, I want you to write down, and you probably saw little pieces of paper. Did everyone get given little pieces of paper? You'll see them now. Don't worry, we'll get them to you. And, I want you to write on those the message to that person, and then you're gonna put it in their envelope, and the reason your picture's on there is not for creepy reason, it's so that you can identify if there's like two Ashleys, or whatever. We know which one to put it on. So, does that make sense? Okay, so do we have buy-in for everyone? The more we give, the more we get, you know, and it's when we frame our minds to look for this positive, we actually change the way they work. And so, this is really, this weekend we're committing to this so that we can change the way our minds work, and great couples are always surveying to what their partner is doing well, instead of what they're doing well. Win, win, win, right? Okay, so the details are over. So, I created this event because there was just something, an insatiable curiosity for me about what made some people so good at just showing up. They go into a room, and their energy would just change the room, right? And we all know these people, right? And so, I wanted to understand what is it about them? What is it about their work that just comes across and just comes across so authentic? And I wanted to, you know, I personally am so inspired by these people, and I wanted to create a conference that brought people like this together, because I feel like the best way for us to transform is to surround ourselves with other people who are already where we want to be. So, I'm not everybody's messenger, not everybody is my messenger, but I certainly have found elements of growth in all of these speakers that you're gonna meet. I've stocked some of them into being my mentors. I haven't stocked any of the others in any other way, but all of them are in my life because they're incredible, and I wanted to share with you sort of my journey of transformation and how these people each affected it. So, to me, being a master of your universe is essentially captured in this picture. This is a sculpture that was done at Burning Man last year by Alexander Milo, I think I got that name right? Yeah, if there's anyone who knows how to pronounce Milo, Alexander Milo. So, what I love about it is you see these two adults with their backs turned to each other, and you see these children touching hands, desperately wanting to connect. And that's what life is about, right? We're here to love, we're here to be loved. But the unfortunate truth is that most of us are these people, afraid to be hurt. And this happens through conditioning. Through our childhood, we experience things that hurt us. So, if we think of this conceptually like, you touch a stove, you burn your hand on the stove, you forever change your behavior around that stove, right? Unless you're a slow learner, you keep burning your hand. But, you know, with emotions, this is actually exactly the same. We experience an emotional need not being met. So, any emotional need that's not adequately met becomes a trauma. Now, of course, with that definition, we're like, holy ----, everybody is traumatized by this. And in a sense, that's true. You know, in a sense, what we associate love with, and family and experience, teachers, friends, it doesn't matter. What we associate them with is often, we love them and it resulted in hurt. And so, subconsciously, we start to build these walls. And this hurt builds how we act around love. How we act when we pursue our dreams. How we act when we want to do anything that feels vulnerable. Oh, that word. Renee Brown has made that word hot. Okay. So, I want you to think about a moment in time that you've experienced it. You know, like, who here has felt that they were unlovable? That they were unworthy? That they didn't deserve something? Right, all of us. And it's such an interesting emotion because although we all experience it, we don't tend to see that pain and that path in other people. You know, in the book, The Truth by Neil Strauss, he says, as soon as I learned this stuff, I felt like I was walking around just being wounded children. And in a way, that's so important that we see the human in the other person so that we see that why they're reacting is because they're trying to prevent being hurt. Now, tribally, this, you know, is our evolution is to fit in. And this was my tribe. Our tribes are family, right? And friends. And as you could tell, I was famous for ruining the family picture. You know, I didn't have a, I was very blessed. I had a very amazing childhood. My parents are married 41 years, older brother and sister. And you know, although it is true that, like I was picked on sometimes by my brother and sister and you know, those sorts of things, my deepest trauma that I can remember when I was young, my first one, was between the grades five and eight, I got chubby. And I was at a family, or I was at a friend's birthday. And I can remember this vividly. I was sitting on a picnic table, looking at, talking to a friend I hadn't seen in a while, so-called friend, wait. And he said to me, wow, you've become quite a porker. I was like, wow. And for the first time in my life, I felt, my first devastatingly obvious one, I felt like I wasn't lovable. And I remember that very dearly because there was such a lesson in that. I always saw that ability to empathize with other people with experience that hurt. My response to that experience was, I was in the summer between grade eight and grade nine. And the only, you know, you couldn't Google like how to lose weight healthy, in a healthy way. You just like observed what you were taught, right? And they didn't teach, they still don't really teach nutrition. So I just knew calories in, calories out. That was like the extent of my nutrition knowledge. So I basically didn't eat. I even ate my grandma's SlimFast, you know? I remember reading the side of it being like, this will keep you full without any nutrients. And I lost weight, obviously. I rode my mountain bike a lot and I got back to school. And on the first day of school, we're all super nervous. I, all the girls who never talked to me, talked to me. And they all of a sudden liked me. And I was like, I didn't like them back. Because I was like, I haven't changed. Like who I am has not changed at all. And it was the first moment that I really experienced being loved for external rather than internal. And I think that we all have experienced media culture. It doesn't really matter what it is that celebrates how we look versus who are we. So I tell you this story just so that you can understand that over time, just to fit in tribes, it's just subconsciously made in us to become who we feel like we need to be to be loved. We become the person that fits in. We become the person that, because when we're kids, our family might, we might get in trouble for some things and celebrate it for other things. And what happens is we protect ourselves, right? We become the popular person, we change who we are, we change our looks, we do whatever. And we adapt. We become what the world wants from us as opposed to allowing the world to adapt to us, which is a big change. Now, of course, the spoiler alert, which is at the bottom, so it's pretty obvious. We don't ever actually feel fully loved because our greatest fear is experienced from that first memorable moment when you can remember where you weren't unlovable and where you weren't deserving. So our greatest fear is to relive that feeling. And so we will do everything in our power to prevent that from happening. And so let's say our greatest fear is being rejected. By not expressing our true selves, we reject ourselves. So the very thing we fear, we create. And then we get mad at other people for it, you know? And so we don't see that the very love we crave is completely not possible to the depth that we all truly crave without actually stepping into the fear of believing that we're unlovable, choosing a different belief. You know, I remember this poem from when I was a kid, two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one that's traveled by, and that one has made all the difference. This was such an idealistic poem, right? But we certainly weren't celebrated for taking the idealistic, the separate, tread your own path. You know, it's like, get a job like this, do a business degree in school. How can you make money with a psychology degree or an arts degree? Unless you're becoming a doctor, you won't make money if you do a science degree. You know, like we have all these narratives that we're told, get married by this age, have kids by this age, practice this spiritual practice. And if you don't do these things, you won't be loved. You won't be included in the tribe. So I believe that, you know, you saw that child that's inside the adult, right? With the back turned and the children desperately wanna connect. You know, we all know that voice, right? The calling from, we can call it God, we can call it the universe, we can call it intuition, we can call it God. It doesn't really matter what you call it, but we all know when it's like, hey, maybe you shouldn't do that. That's what you really wanna do. You really need to have this conversation. And we don't answer it. And I believe that when we do that, we sort of have a life that is our true self and we have a life that is who we're being. You know, the representative, the mask that we wear, what others have been talking about. And the space between who we are and who we're being is a gap and that gap is painful. That's our pain. You know, what we don't see is that pain is information. You know, we're all sold this story that you can't be sad. Sadness is bad, treat it with a pill. Treat it with drugs, treat it with alcohol, treat it with sex. Treat it with love, face relationships. You know, all these things to numb the pain we feel from not being aligned with ourselves, from not giving expression to who we truly are. And you know, usually the decisions that we have to make are hard. And so, you know, masters, when we become the master of our universe, the first step is answering the call. And I got asked that earlier, are you gonna propose today? I'm like, no, no. Not that I don't love you, wherever you are, but we're not getting married today. But my rock bottom, rock, bottom, get it? That sounded better on paper, was getting engaged. And that sounds weird, right? Because it's like, the person who I got engaged to is a phenomenal woman. She was everything on the checklist, she was amazing. She is amazing. But I remember sitting across from her the day that we got engaged, and I was looking at her, and I was thinking to myself, I should be more excited than this. I think I should. And it was the first time that I became the observer. You know, like, it was the first time that I actually looked down on both of us, and I saw her emotional experience, and I saw mine. And I went, wow, you got yourself in quite a jam. You know, and I joke sometimes that, you know, some of the greatest life's lessons cost a lot of money. You know, we bought a house and moved in that day and got engaged. I like to just go all out if I'm gonna learn a lesson. So, all joking aside, I then went into discovery mode, because I'm like, how do I know if I'm making, like, I knew in my heart, you know, hindsight is always good 20-20, right? I knew in my heart that I didn't wanna be in that relationship. I certainly wasn't able to let anyone love me at that moment either. And I went on this website, and it was called The Runaway Bride, I think, and I posted my story. And I posted it on a forum when I was going through what I was feeling, and I was, there wasn't Google back then, but I was like, I think it was called Web Crawler, which sounds creepy. But, it was a creepy theme, haven't it? But I put in, how do you know if she's the one? How do you know if she's the one? And I found this website where you could write things, so I put my story on there. And this lady, many people offered support, but one especially I remember so well. And she said to me, she asked me three questions. First one was, if she left you, tomorrow would you be okay? And I was like, yeah. And I didn't wanna say yeah to that, but it was true. And the next one was, can you imagine what it would be like waiting at the altar for her, whenever that altar, and I was like, I don't know. That, like, gave me anxiety. Yeah, not a great sign, okay? It's pretty predictive. You know how this story ends, right? And then the third one was, could someone else love her better? And I was like, yeah. And so I woke up to the impact of my choices. I woke up to the fact that I was afraid, and because I was afraid, I was taking someone else down the path with me. And maybe that's the responsibility I needed to understand, you know, to finally go, this isn't just about you. This is about other people. And you're such a sissy. Like, you've been, like, avoiding all these emotions you're experiencing, and yet it's clear in front of your eyes what you have to do. And that's why the first step is always answering the call. And the second one, the second one is, and this is the most important one, is to understand your world. Is to look at, what are the beliefs? Because until we actually make it aware, until we bring it to the light, our beliefs are not formed by us. They're collected through experience. Who we build our identity on is to protect ourselves. So these beliefs are generally handed to us. We don't choose most of them. And that's why there's usually a painful experience between even what spiritual practice we choose, which we don't choose, we get handed when we're born, you know, or even what job we pick. Everything we do to keep up the facade, right? So if you think about your mind like a computer, and the programs that run on it, those programs are the beliefs we have. And Vienna's gonna talk tomorrow more about narrative. So these are the things we pick up that we believe we have to be. And most of the time, they're viruses. You know, they're not actually getting us the love we want. They're actually preventing us from getting that. And so we need to be curators of our mind. We need to be curators of what we believe. We need to be the programmer. And if you're not the programmer, someone else is. And it's everything you pick up from media, culture, religion, all that stuff. Every piece of it, even the people around you. And, you know, most of us think like we attach to our emotions. I am sad, I am depressed, I am angry, I am happy, as opposed to I feel. Replace it with I feel. We don't become it. Because the moment you identify as anything, you have to become it. Right? If you say I am sad, all of a sudden, everything that's associated with sad, your body language changes everything. And so when we separate from what that is, we don't become it. We start to see that pain is information. We start to see that bad feelings are actually just telling us that we need to shift something, as opposed to stay in that space and drink or whatever we do to numb it. So this is the most important part, is to really do the research. And, you know, after, oh, I didn't say it. My engagement ended, by the way. And after that, I wanted to understand everything about myself. I honestly was a little pissed. Because I was like, no one taught me. Like, I've been going down this path because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. Which is very much like a victim, right? Who's like, I am the result of my teaching. I'm a result of my childhood. But I was pissed that I wasn't in control. I was pissed that I wasn't choosing. And in that moment, I was like, I choose everything. And there's a hard shift that comes when you decide to take that stance. And that shift is that, if you believe that you choose everything, you all of a sudden look at your whole life and you go, why the **** did I choose this thing? Why did I choose things that hurt me? Why did I choose things that hurt other people? You know, and that's the part where people usually get stuck and they go back. But stepping through that is where the freedom is. You become the master of your universe when you believe you choose, when you change your world. You can have everything you want if you believe it. So, good segue, it's almost planned. So, you know, we usually believe that we have to see it to believe it. And I totally think that that's false. We have to believe it to see it. You know, I talked earlier about gratitude and gratitude shifts our focus. If you think about it, if you buy a new car, you notice that everybody has that car. And all of a sudden you're like, I didn't think anybody had a Jeep. And then you're like, everybody has a Jeep. Sorry, Yana, Yana just bought a Jeep. She's like, everybody has your car, I'm sorry. So, it's crazy though, because our mind focuses on it. So if you think about what your beliefs are, your mind's focused on confirming those beliefs. And in psychology, they call that confirmation bias. Because people do not want to feel that their identity or their beliefs are threatened. And we know that to be very true, right? We just have to pay attention to why wars are fought. And so that's why that war goes on within us. And that's why it's so important to be the curator of that and to choose what you believe. And it is about reframing your mind to look for opportunity. You know, it sounds like the secret, but there's that part that's missing of the secret where you're like, my brother hates the secret because he's like, you don't just imagine a red bike and get a red bike. And I was like, that actually is a great point. You have to put your life in alignment to get there. You don't just get things, you have to choose. You have to choose to be the type of person that gets those types of things. So, one of the big shifts is to ask ourselves this in any moment. If I was enough, what would I do? Because when we do this, and I said before that we have this difference between who we're being and who we truly are. And that gap is a couple decisions, generally just a couple decisions. They just happen to be some of the toughest decisions you'll ever make. For me, it was ending a relationship when I thought everyone was gonna judge me. It was ending a relationship when I thought I'd be a failure. I was going against what everyone thought. And, you know, it is this. It's being able to say, if I was enough, what would I do? And see what happens when we do that is we make the decision, and then we start to get the results that make us believe that we are. So, it's this feedback loop. Your world starts to represent that you're enough. Because if you ever notice, there's that quote from John Green, I believe it is, that says, we choose the love we believe we deserve. Because we can't actually keep situations and people in our life that affected it in a negative way if we don't believe in some way that we deserve it. And that's why we have to shift our own beliefs to make our world match that. So, there's one thing about mastering your universe that is absolutely essential, which is, you have to hold yourself to a higher standard. You know, we're only on this earth for one round, although there would be some extent that you might have multiple lives, but we're not gonna get into that. But in this moment, we have one life. And we get to choose how we show up. We get to choose if we want to be our best self. For me, that's my measure. You know, because people who master themselves, they say, as soon as they make a choice that seems it is a mistake, they do not choose it again. They change their life so that it doesn't happen again. And that's absolutely one of the most important pieces, is you have to hold yourself to a higher standard, and you will notice that the people around you meet that standard too, because they have to. That's me as a kid, and we used to go to my grandpa and grandma's house when I was a kid, and I'd always run inside the door, and I'd put on my grandpa's hat. And he would ask me all sorts of questions about life and what I wanted to be. And he really satisfied that insatiable curiosity as a kid. You know, when you can say, I want to be an astronaut, or I want to be whatever. And we lose this insatiable curiosity, right? There's sort of like a irony here, and that's eventually the same people who were encouraging our dreams say, actually, have you thought about this? What about that? Are you sure you can achieve that? Are you sure that's a good idea? Same people that encourage our dreams take a poop on them in the future. So, I had to use the word poop once, just in my talk, but go back to the curiosity that you had as a child. Be ever wanting to improve, you know? And being always looking for the things, and I said before, to understand your world, your world is always changing. That's why self-mastery is not just an end point, it's an ongoing process, or process for my Americano friends here. And just last but not least, surround yourself with great people. Commit to grow. You know, if you're in this room, you know, you're already in great company. You know, I've met so many wonderful people already, and so many people have come from so far. Like, there's a tri-town, Yvonne. Who else, anyone come from further east? Billy, where are you from? DC? DC, bringing him in the house. Ontario, where are you guys from? Where? North Carolina? Oh, damn, where are you from? The, holy, yeah. Wow. That's amazing. And isn't that so cool that we can, like, create this community, and meet people from all over? And like, every conference I've been to, I have met a best friend. You know, someone who's stayed in my life, many people have stayed in my life. And that's because as we grow and evolve, we surround ourselves with people, and we can't help but attract them. You know, and it's, this is one of the hardest things of growth, is as you wake up, answer the call, do the research, and choose to change, you'll notice that the people who don't wanna change, whose beliefs are being threatened by you, will try to hold you in the same spot. And that's okay, right? We can invite them to grow into us, but normally, we suppress ourselves to stay with them, because we're afraid of exclusion. But if that's a fear that you have, all you have to do is look around for you. Your tribe will come to you, and we're so used to reacting to the world. We're so used to saying, if you like me, I like you too. You know, on dates. If you wanna, I want a relationship too. Oh, you don't want one? I don't want one either. It's amazing. I want whatever you want. But then, of course, the true self comes out about three months later, when we hope they fall in love, and then they find out that we're actually a different person. And that's why it's important that we surround ourselves with people who think like us, and think how we want to think. The greatest hack to life is surrounding yourself with people who already do, and think what you wanna do. And the people who are gonna speak for you this weekend are all people that I have latched onto, because they bring me to a different space. So, with all that said, I want to take the opportunity to first off thank all of you for being here. I mean, I'm from all over. Philippines being represented, this is amazing. So, thank you. I want you to turn to your neighbor. If you don't know them, great. If you do, then skip them. Meet someone else. And I want you to tell the other person that you meet, obviously your name, that'd be important first step. And then tell them what your intention was this weekend, what you hope to learn and gain. Why did you come here? So, can you take a couple seconds to do that? That'd be great.