Mark Newey is a Protagonist and Disruptor, empowering small business owners to totally transform their company's biggest asset: themselves. Running a business is stressful, especially in today's environment: if we are stressed, our cognitive capacity drops by 40%, which means we are operating at 60% efficiency. Mark has distilled 22 years of experience from his own breakdown and working with 3000 clients (of whom 1200 were small business owners) into a foolproof system: The 7 Steps to Radical Self-Discovery. Only 10% of companies thrive and grow coming out of a crisis. The difference between the 10% and the 90%? The mindset of the entrepreneur.
Mark Newey, Radical Self-Discovery Coach
So, who are you, Mark?
I live in a very female-dominated household: my wonderful wife of 35 years, my 3 gorgeous (OK I’m biased…but they are gorgeous) daughters, 2 female cats and my bro’, the male cat. Needless to say, I’m a feminist! Actually, I always was.
I’m an active ex-rugby player. I’m the real me in the mountains: I’m in heaven on skis or with a pack on my back!
Lastly, I love live music. I’m going to 4 festivals this summer.
Tell us about a pivotal moment in your life that brought you to where you are today.
On a cloudy afternoon in November 1998, my then 4-year-old daughter jumps on my bed, perching on her knees, she looks deep into my eyes and says: “Daddy, I miss you.” My first thought was: “What’s she on about? I haven’t left my bedroom for days or the house for months.” Then it hit me, what she meant. My company had gone bust months before and I collapsed mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually: full-blown breakdown, full of shame and self-recrimination.
This was the kick up the backside I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and sort my life out. I started by reading books on how the mind works; anti-depressants (rightly or wrongly) were not an option for me. The more I read, the more fascinated I got and ended training in NLP, Coaching and hypnotherapy. Over the last 23 years I have gone on to help nearly 3000 people beat stress, anxiety and depression and transform their lives.
My work is Radical Self-Discovery, largely through 1-2-1 teaching and coaching and has 4 main pillars: Self Awareness (which very few of us have since 91% of how our mind creates our reality is unconscious and we know nothing about our unconscious), Self -Esteem (which unbelievably few of us have because we’re brought up to worry what people think about us), Purpose (one of which we all have but very few people know what theirs is) and Self-Empowerment.
Who is the target audience for your business?
Things have changed dramatically in the last 2-3 years since COVID and lockdowns. For 20 years my clients were mainly small business owners in their 40’s and 50’s plus top-level City-types. However, the last 3 years my clients have been mainly young people, many of whom are suicidal. Obviously as part of my work, I get to know my clients really well and 4 things stuck out for young people:
They couldn’t see a future for themselves.
They really struggle with self-loathing
They were completely let down by the education system and curriculum
Many would love to set up their own business but didn’t dare
This huge swing led me to do some research to see what was going on on a national scale. And the data entirely backs these 4 points up. Interestingly 47% of young people see self-employment as more job secure than entering the job market. 62% of youngsters have thought of setting up their own business, but only 8% are self-employed…and that includes zero-hour contracts! They identify the barriers are lack of self-confidence, absolutely no support and financial constraints.
If you could change one thing about your industry (mental wellness), what would it be and why?
We would transform society by taking a pro-active approach to mental health, not a reactive one. 91% of our mind is unconscious; so, 91% of how we create our reality on a moment-by-moment basis is unconscious. And how much do we know about our unconscious? Pretty much nothing! No wonder we struggle so much, particularly post-pandemic and lockdowns. When somebody effectively tells you to “pull yourself together”, well you would if you could; but willpower lies in the conscious 10%, which is not enough.
How is that young people can leave school without knowing how their mind works? Imagine the different state the world would be in if they did. They would understand that stress, anxiety and depression are not mental illnesses…at least not to start with. They are a signal from our system telling us that something is wrong: we’re not living our life in a way that makes us happy, so we need to stand back, have a look at our life and change something. Stress, anxiety and depression are our system working correctly: they are a warning that we need to do something. Listening to our system and making changes at this point is so much easier. But nobody told us that; in fact, because there’s still a stigma around mental health, we hide our problems and then they get worse and worse.
How will your future plans change this?
As well as young people struggling like crazy, 80% of small business owners are struggling with their mental health. *LLOYDS BANK, MHUK 2023 There is little support for small business owners and even less on guiding young people into entrepreneurship, even though they have identified that this is a life they would like to lead and one that would give them hope and meaning to their lives.
I am in the process of setting up a company specifically to fill this enormous gap.
Our Mission
Cohoots is creating an actively self-supporting community (The Cohoots Cohort) of small business warriors of financially successful entrepreneurs, existing small business owners and would-be young entrepreneurs. The Cohoots Academy will provide members with a comprehensive programme of Radical Self Discovery and Radical Entrepreneurship, to equip them with the passion and self-empowerment to make an impact on the world, individually and as a group, through their business.
Our Vision
The Cohoots Cohort is an online community of small businesses, dedicated to guiding owners to mental wellness, allowing them to reconnect with the energy, passion and belief in their business with the explicit objective of creating social change, through genuine connection and dedicated mutual support. A culture of ambassadorship, enlightenment and belief in the power of small businesses to adapt and thrive together is contributing to a better world.
What is your work inspired by?
The absolute belief in people’s ability to transform their lives and those of the people around them, when guided as to how to do it. History works in pendulum swings: things have to get really bad before the silent majority begins to stand up and change things within society. Well, the pendulum has swung far enough. It’s time for small business owners, who have already turned their back on the broken Western system, who have the drive, creativity and adaptability to make things happen, to stand up and change the way we live and the way society works.
If you would like a no-obligation virtual 30-minute coffee break chat to explore further how Radical Self-Discovery can genuinely transform your life and your business, please don’t hesitate to contact me from my website. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.
Resources:
Please visit https://www.cohoots.co.uk/7-steps-to-radical-self-discovery/ to find out more about your personal solution for stress.
Here are links to two more articles on stress in Brainz:
